Spokane-area birding couple put the hawk in Seahawks

When he was 12, his father took him to see a double feature: “True Grit,” starring John Wayne, and “My Side of the Mountain,” a story of a boy in the Canadian wilderness who trained a peregrine falcon to hunt for him.

“The lights went on. I was just introduced to something. I was going to be involved,” Knutson said.

He got his first license and a kestrel falcon when he was 14. “I’ve gone no more than a year since then when I didn’t have a bird of prey,” he said. “Now, I breed falcons.”

Eventually, Knutson, 56, turned his passion into government contracts. Since 1996, he has used his expertise with birds of prey to make sure that war planes at Fairchild Air Force Base — and other bases in Washington and California — don’t hit birds on takeoffs and landings.

Knutson also contracts to provide predator sweeps to vineyards and fruit growers, who often lose thousands of dollars worth of crops to birds every year.

On Dec. 18, Knutson was monitoring the runways at Fairchild as four jets taxied out for takeoff. He saw a bald eagle fly over the tarmac.

Instead of continuing onward, the national bird landed five feet from the takeoff runway.

“I immediately called the tower and informed them of the hazard and asked to get on the runway,” he said. “That’s a 15-to-20 pound bird with an eight-foot wingspan. That’s going to take out an engine.”

After a pause, the air traffic controller sent him after the eagle. Knutson drove his truck toward the eagle, which flew off toward Medical Lake.

When asked why he didn’t use a falcon, Knutson answered: “Chaos, mid-air combat. They may fight each other for 15 minutes right over the runway.”

The point of his job, he explained, is not to kill whatever critter or bird that wanders into Fairchild’s safety zone. It’s to educate them. In addition to falcons, Knutson also takes his English pointer dogs to flush any birds that decide to take refuge in the grass near the runways.

“I bring an unnatural number of predators to that area,” he said. “Killing isn’t the answer. What we want to do is change the culture. We have to show them it’s not safe to eat here at this time of day.”

He often uses gyrfalcons, which are the largest of all falcon species. He also breeds Peale’s falcons, the largest subspecies of the peregrine falcon. Both live in inhospitable conditions in or near Alaska and northern Canada.

“A gyrfalcon is one of the fastest birds in the world,” Knutson said. “But they can get sick easy and injure themselves easily.”

Some of the intruders at Fairchild are seasonal, such as sea gulls, horned larks or swallows. Most see the falcons and get the idea to stay clear.

But sometimes migratory birds, such as ducks and geese, don’t get the message and linger.

“If they don’t want to leave, they are going to get hit … at more than 200 miles per hour,” Knutson said, pointing out two female mallards and what looked like a pigeon in the back of his pickup.

Knutson’s exploits as a pest controller got the notice of the Seattle Seahawks ownership.

He was invited in 2003 to a roomful of suits to explain what he could do with a trained hawk as part of the pregame show.

“All along I kept thinking they would tell me what they want, like having the hawk fly through a flaming hoop,” he said.

Then-Seahawks CEO Tod Leiweke stood up and said, “The boss (Paul Allen) wants to have a hawk on game days. He wants to start a tradition. What do you think you could do?”

Knutson said he took the crew down onto the field and verbally imagined a bass-fueled heart beat thumping as a hawk came flying through smoke out of the tunnel and onto the field to lead the players as the entire spectacle is displayed prominently on the huge video screens inside what is now CenturyLink Field.

“They started saying, ‘Great’ and slapping each other on the back,” he said. “I’m really putting my neck on the line. I didn’t have a bird to do it.”

In 2003 and 2004, Knutson ran out with the team with Faith, a Lanner falcon, on his wrist. “She flew around. I’d have her chase a lure. It was pretty dramatic, but not what we had envisioned.”

The name “Seahawk” is a misnomer. There is no such bird. The closest actual bird would be an osprey.

Knutson’s original plan was to find a couple injured ospreys at a recovery center and train the birds to fly out of the tunnel in front of the Seahawks. He then would have donated the money he’s paid by the organization — he declined to disclose the amount — to further birds-of-prey recovery efforts.

But the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shot down the idea, essentially barring Knutson from using any indigenous birds of prey for commercial purposes.

“I understand what they were saying, but I don’t think they understood what we were trying to do,” he said.

Taima, now 8, has never failed to perform.

“There is a lot of education that needs to happen. I’ve found that it’s a fun way to show birds of prey,” Knutson said.