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Sign In →Turning Conflict into Conservation — The West's Broker for Golden Eagles.
The Golden Eagle Center will serve as the dedicated facility and operational hub for the Eagle Exchange. When golden eagles depredate livestock, we provide a constructive alternative to lethal removal by relocating them to our center — where their continued contribution to the western ecosystem can be redirected, not lost.
This is not a sanctuary. It is a working conservation facility — a place where eagles that would otherwise face lethal management instead enter a structured pipeline of research, training, rehabilitation, and release into landscapes where the population needs them most.
The Golden Eagle Center is more than a concept. It's a physical place, a scientific operation, and a community destination. Below: the visual story of what we're building, and the partners we serve.
📷 Photo credits: Wikimedia Commons (public domain & CC) · USGS / American Eagle Research Institute. Full attribution below.
We remove eagles where they create conflict for ranchers — and return eagles where they are needed. This creates a net positive for both western livestock producers and golden eagle populations.
Each program addresses a distinct gap in the current eagle management system. Together they form a complete pipeline — from the ranch gate to the wild and back to the public.
Every program at the Golden Eagle Center is grounded in peer-reviewed research and federal datasets. This is the working bibliography legislators, agencies, and partners can audit.
Full citations, methods, and primary-source links are maintained in the public-facing Primary Research Sources hub. Cross-referenced topic pages: Mortality · Lead · Electrocution · Wind · Biology & Populations.
The current eagle-management system asks each group to absorb the costs of someone else's priorities. The Center inverts that — turning the same operational footprint into a measurable benefit for ranchers, falconers, agencies, and tribal partners simultaneously.
A clear operational roadmap with milestones legislators, funders, and partners can hold us to. Each phase is sized to be deliverable within current regulatory authority, with reform expansions clearly marked.
A working document — what reviewers, agencies, and the public are most likely to ask. Each answer is grounded in the regulatory framework and the science cited above.
No — and this is the central design choice. Transferred eagles are not released into other ranching country. They enter a structured pipeline that ends in one of three outcomes: (1) release into population-recovery zones with low livestock density and confirmed eagle declines, (2) integration into the falconry-training program as working birds, or (3) intake into the rehabilitation/feather program if injured or unsuitable for release.
The Center exists precisely because the federal interstate relocation plan stalled when other states declined to accept relocated eagles. We absorb that downstream burden.
Currently, 50 CFR § 21.82 prohibits captive breeding of golden eagles for falconry. The pathway exists, though: in 2011 USFWS published an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking inviting public comment on raptor propagation permits — including eagles.
Program 01 is explicitly framed as working toward regulatory approval. Phase 1 is operational readiness; the rulemaking comes through the federal Administrative Procedure Act process during Years 2–4. The Center serves as the credible facility and data-generator that makes that rulemaking defensible.
Two practical reasons. First, regulatory diversification — putting the facility in a different state than where most transfers originate reduces the risk that one state's wildlife agency holds veto power over the entire program (the failure mode that stalled the federal relocation plan).
Second, operational access — Utah offers the right combination of suitable habitat for release-staging, qualified master falconer density, equestrian park land availability, and tourism infrastructure for the public-education arm. Wyoming-origin eagles are transported under standard USFWS-authorized transport, the same way every rehabilitated bird is moved today.
The Center is designed as a blended-funding nonprofit: founding capital from private philanthropy and conservation grants; operating revenue from education programs, falconry school enrollment, equestrian park admissions, agency research contracts, and corporate partnerships (notably from wind utilities seeking mortality-reduction research partnerships).
No congressional appropriation is required for the Center to open. Year 5 target: self-sustaining operational budget across the diversified streams.
Year 1. The intake pipeline is operational from day one. Wyoming ranchers reporting confirmed depredation through Eagle Exchange Hub's Quick Field Report tool would, under federal permits already in place (50 CFR § 22.21 depredation permits + 50 CFR § 21.82 falconry take), have a working destination for problem birds within the first operational year.
The captive breeding, federal cap-reform, and population-recovery release programs are multi-year arcs. Direct rancher impact is the fastest-deliverable component.
The Center expands — rather than competes with — the existing tribal-religious-use framework under 50 CFR § 22.60. The National Eagle Repository's chronic 4,000–6,000 request backlog is downstream of supply constraints, not demand. Every naturally molted feather collected at the Center flows into the existing NER pipeline.
Program 04 includes formal tribal-consultation governance from program inception. The Center does not handle, redistribute, or possess feathers outside the NER framework.
No. The Center operates entirely downstream of, and authorized by, existing federal regulatory authority — USFWS for migratory bird permits (50 CFR Parts 21, 22), USDA Wildlife Services for field investigations and depredation determinations, and state wildlife agencies for in-state transport and release permits.
The Center adds operational capacity to a system that already authorizes every step. It doesn't expand federal authority or override state agencies.
Building on the Eagle Exchange Hub's heat map, 5-step reporting workflow, and research resources, the Golden Eagle Center transforms depredation challenges into opportunities for science, recovery, and community engagement.
The infrastructure already exists in pieces — ranchers reporting, agencies investigating, falconers willing, researchers tracking. What's missing is a physical place where these pieces meet, work together, and produce measurable outcomes for both producers and populations.
The Golden Eagle Center is that place.
Eagle in flight (hero & gallery): Wikimedia Commons — Giles Laurent (Pfyn-Finges, Switzerland) and other contributors. CC BY-SA 4.0 / Public Domain.
Falconry scenes: Wikimedia Commons — English falconer Roy Lupton hawking with a Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos), Angus Glens, Scotland (Public Domain); Mongolian Eagle Hunters traditional cultural practice (Public Domain).
Telemetry research: U.S. Geological Survey — female Golden Eagle with GPS-GSM transmitter, photo by Daniel Driscoll, American Eagle Research Institute. Public Domain.
Sheep on rangeland: Wikimedia Commons / U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service — "What's good for the herd is good for the bird" series, Wyoming. Public Domain.
All imagery used under licenses permitting commercial & educational reuse. The Golden Eagle Center is committed to using only properly attributed, freely licensed visual materials.