Another stop in the Cholpon-Ata area was to meet a golden eagle hunter. This area of Kyrgyzstan is famous for their golden eagle hunters. Kazakhstan and other parts of central Asia also have this tradition. It goes back to their nomad days and their survival as a means of acquiring food and furs in the harsh winter months. Today, this is no longer essential and this tradition is fading away, but there are still some expert hunters who are determined to keep the practice alive.

Other people train falcons and hawks but the Kyrgyz train golden eagles. They consider the golden eagle to be the most powerful, intelligent, and lethal hunters and they can kill rabbits, foxes, lynxes, and even wolves.

You can see the gentleman we met in the first photo, along with his golden eagle. He is a fourth generation eagle hunter and his son worked with him on this day. It will take three to four years before the eagle and hunter are ready for a successful hunt. It also takes up much of the hunter’s time to work with his bird. The eagle he’s holding is about one year old. Catching a wild eagle or taking a fledgling from the nest might be the toughest part of the whole operation.

We each got to take a turn holding the eagle. You can see Vicky and Nora in the next two photos. Vicky looked like she was holding one of our grandkids. I’m not sure if Nora was just giving the eagle a hug or if she was trying to keep it calm as a herd of cattle passed.

Then we got a live demonstration. An eagle in the wild hunts for its food every day, so the eagle hunter’s do as well. The eagle hunter went up the ridge about two hundred yards with the eagle and on a signal to his son, his boy let a rabbit loose, right near us. The eagle got to the rabbit very quickly but then the rabbit got away (fourth photo) and started running between our legs. (No photo of this as I was dancing around to avoid the eagle) It didn’t take the eagle long to catch it (fifth photo) but it was an exciting bit of time. We then got to witness some of their bonding time as well as the hunter feeding the eagle to reward it for its work catching the rabbit, though he didn’t feed it the rabbit that it caught.