Meet the Falconer Who Earns $20,000 a Month
You do what? A Long Island native traded book publishing for birds and never looked back.
Alina Blankenship
Master Falconer at Sky Guardian Falconry
West Linn, Oregon
The job: Falconry-based abatement. “We use trained falcons, hawks and owls as security guards to protect areas where pest birds congregate,” said Alana Blankenship, 52. She leverages the predator-prey relationship that is hardwired into birds to avoid their predators, to deter gulls, starlings, Canadian geese, pigeons, sparrows and other fowl. Unlike scarecrows or loud noises, “the birds will never acclimate to that.” Her clients include air fields, stadiums, wharfs, cities, golf courses and dams where opportunistic birds catch fish. In Oregon, she works with many agriculture companies, such as vineyards, which often sit in the migration paths of starlings that gather in groups of tens of thousands and can decimate a crop in minutes. “It’s like a mob rush at a grocery store,” Blankenship said.