Falconry is the oldest sport in history, dating back at least 6000 years. Thousands of years ago, men hunted with raptors -- falcons, hawks, owls, and sometimes even eagles. They would catch young falcons in the wild, spend years training them, live with their birds, then release them, using signals from hundreds of feet away to coordinate the hunt, and then split the hunt with the bird.

Today, they usually give all of it to the bird, nevertheless it's still a beautiful and noble sport in which man and bird work together to catch prey.

Fun Fact: Falcons are used in public parks and golf courses to chase away nuisance birds. It's also used by farmers -- more effective than scarecrows. There is a long apprenticeship required and a centuries old system of knowledge and training.

The most famous book is called "The Modern Apprentice". It's a worth a read even if you don't practice falconry. http://www.themodernapprentice.com/glossary.htm

Here is the CA club: https://www.calhawkingclub.org/falconry-apprenticeship/appre...

Each state has its own regulations for falconry as it does for all other forms of hunting.

Hobbies like this typically result from spending absurd amounts of time outdoors in the first place, that some of those most attuned to their local environments have turned themselves symbiont with the neighborhood apex predators is quite beautiful, and closer to where we should be headed imo.