Developing Technologies

Creating a Traditional Falcon Net Video

According to Abu Yazin, in 1947 an Egyptian named Ali Abu Yarout introduced the local Bedouin population to the new technologies that ultimately improved the capture of falcons and that are still used today. The line traps (‘sharka’ in Arabic) replaced the pre-existing ones which involved more cumbersome straps made of goat leather.

The technologies associated with modern falcon trapping in Jordan appears to have been taken up gradually by the tribe during the late 1940s and 50s, with some families quickly incorporating the practice into their seasonal routine and other families taking much more time to do so. But even decades later, falcon trapping and associated activities practiced by the Abu Tayeb Bedouin are still very ad hoc in nature. Strategies used to bait and capture the falcons are not optimized, even though there are numerous opportunities for improvements. The devices that are directly used to capture bait birds or raptors including line loop traps, nets, and bird cases (‘mutrafa’ in Arabic) are far from improvised technologies but are instead made with great skill and time investment. There is actually little need for trappers to make their own nets, as netting is cheap and readily available in nearby cities. But trappers instead devote the time in carefully making their own nets affixed to frames, as this is part of the knowledge sharing process with the younger participants.