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Regarding regulations changes, there is not much to report. The Department is still working on re-writing our proposal into their tense and nomenclature; however, I’m told that we’re still on the agenda for the November Commission Meeting in terms of introducing the new regulations draft. I’m also told that the Department does not actually have to have the draft to introduce this item at the Commission meeting. The Department can actually work on the re-write of our proposal all the way up to the deadline for publishing in the Texas register later in November or in early December. Of course, the FRC will be given the opportunity to vet the re-write and depending on how that process goes will also determine whether we actually get the new regs in the next Register. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the Department can come through and finish the re-write soon. However, if we end up missing this window, that just means that we’ll be delayed a month or two. In other words, we will still have the final new regs in place in the first half of next year.

More significantly, what’s really important to understand right now is that the Department successfully submitted our request to the USFWS to certify under the new federal regulations, using our current State regulations, along with all of the other required documentation. As part of this process, the Department put a rule in place that wherever our state regs conflict with the new federal regs, we will defer to the federal regs. This is a huge vote of confidence for Texas falconers on the part of Department. If the USFWS accepts our certification request (and we have no reason to think they won’t), that certification will go into effect in January. This means no more federal permits and the ability for us to submit electronic 3-186a forms, among other things. So life is getting very good! Then a little later in the year, we’ll actually get our Texas regulation change in place so we can take full advantage of the new federal regs.

Regarding the peregrine take, the roll-out of the process has been almost anti-climatic and has worked very well. Although we had to have many discussions with the Department regarding the right path to take, all of those meetings seem to have paid off with a good program in place that was executed effectively. What more can I say? As I’m sure all of are aware, permittees have captured peregrines and we’re charting new history.

That’s all for now. Know that we are working diligently for furthering the sport of falconry in Texas.