Meetings and Speakers

April Meeting

Saving the Peregrine Falcon: Six Decades of Raptor Conservation Inspired by a Single Charismatic Species

Tim Gallagher

Monday, April 13, 2026, 7:30pm
Cornell Lab of Ornithology

By the mid-1960s, only a handful of Peregrine Falcon eyries existed in the Lower 48 states. The bird had already become extinct as a breeding species east of the Mississippi River. Even in remote regions, the bird’s numbers were plummeting, and the same was true across Europe. In 1965, ornithologist Joe Hickey convened a conference at the University of Wisconsin at Madison to find out why, inviting raptor researchers from around the world. This was a scientific conference unlike any other. No one was out in the hallway having side conversations. Everyone attended every paper and discussion, basically hanging on the edge of their seats. No one could imagine losing the Peregrine Falcon. Together they developed concrete plans to save the species. Ithaca, New York, became the epicenter of the Peregrine Falcon recovery effort a few years later, when Tom Cade (who had been a key participant at the Madison conference) built a falcon breeding facility at Cornell and began releasing the young falcons they produced. Tim Gallagher has a unique perspective on the Peregrine Falcon recovery. Over the years, he got to know many of the most important raptor researchers (including Tom Cade) who pulled this spectacular species back from the brink of extinction. He also worked at the Santa Cruz Predatory Bird Research Group in the late 1970s, helping to boost the number of nesting Peregrines in California.

About the Speaker: Tim Gallagher is an award-winning author, wildlife photographer, and magazine editor. He served as editor-in-chief of Living Bird, the flagship publication of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, for more than 25 years and was one of the founding editors of WildBird magazine. Tim got his first field guide at the age of eight and has been obsessively watching birds ever since. He is the author of several books, including Parts Unknown, Wild Bird Photography, The Grail Bird, Falcon Fever, and Imperial Dreams, and is co-author of several more. And he’s a longtime member of the Cayuga Bird Club.