By William Kremer BBC World ServiceA photographer who snapped what
could be the world’s only girl hunting with a golden eagle says
watching her work was an amazing sight.
Most children, Asher Svidensky says, are a little intimidated by
golden eagles. Kazakh boys in western Mongolia start learning how
to use the huge birds to hunt for foxes and hares at the age of 13,
when the eagles sit heavily on their undeveloped arms.
Svidensky, a photographer and travel writer, shot five boys
learning the skill as well as the girl, Ashol-Pan. "To see her with
the eagle was amazing," he recalls. "She was a lot more comfortable
with it, a lot more powerful with it and a lot more at ease with
it."
The Kazakhs of the Altai mountain range in western Mongolia are the
only people that hunt with golden eagles, and today there are
around 400 practising falconers. Ashol-Pan, the daughter of a
particularly celebrated hunter, may well be the country's only
apprentice huntress.
They hunt in winter, when the
temperatures can drop to -40C (-40F). A hunt begins with days of
trekking on horseback through snow to a mountain or ridge giving an
excellent view of prey for miles around. Hunters generally work in
teams. After a fox is spotted, riders charge towards it to flush it
into the open, and an eagle is released. If the eagle fails to make
a kill, another is released.
The skill of hunting with eagles, Svidensky says, lies in
harnessing an unpredictable force of nature. “You don’t really
control the eagle. You can try and make her hunt an animal – and
then it’s a matter of nature. What will the eagle do? Will she make
it? How will you get her back afterwards?”
