Home › Birds in Their Relation to Agriculture › Birds in Their Relation to Agriculture: Hawks

Birds in Their Relation to Agriculture: Hawks

Recent careful study with reference to the food habits of Hawks and Owls carried on by the United States Department of Agriculture go to show that these birds, with but few exceptions, are the farmer's friends rather than his enemies. It appears that the good which they accomplish in the way of destroying mice, gophers, rabbits and other small mammals along with great quantities of noxious insects far exceeds the possible harm they do by the occasional destruction of poultry and other birds. A critical examination of the actual contents of about twenty-seven hundred stomachs of these birds showed that only six of the seventy-three species found in the United States are injurious. Three of these are so rare that they need not be considered. Of the remaining three the Fish Hawk is only indirectly injurious: hence but two remain to be considered, viz., the Sharp-shinned and Cooper's Hawks. "Omitting the six species that feed largely on poultry and game, 2,212 stomachs were examined, of which 56 per cent contained mice and other small mammals, 27 per cent insects, and only 31 per cent poultry and game birds."