TALONS OF HOPE

Send us Fan Mail The global transition to renewable energy is vital, but it comes with a tragic ecological side effect: the loss of avian life. Across the United States alone, wind turbines claim between 140,000 and over 1 million bird lives every single year. While songbirds make up a large portion of these numbers, the crisis is uniquely devastating for the slow-to-reproduce apex predators that...

Send us Fan Mail This special episode of Talons of Hope —a podcast typically dedicated to the majestic "masters of the sky" like kestrels, hawks, and falcons —shifts its focus to a bird often dismissed as mere prey: the pigeon . For World Biological Diversity Day , we are exploring why the pigeon is actually the "oldest company we keep," a partnership that predates nations and...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Talons of Hope, we sit down with John Goodell, Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Archives of Falconry in Boise, Idaho, for a conversation about what it means to protect a living tradition. The Archives of Falconry was founded in 1986 by the same falconers who helped launch modern raptor conservation. Today, it stands as a destination for anyone drawn t...

Send us Fan Mail In this unforgettable first episode of a special three-part Talons of Hope trilogy, host Dr Munir Virani sits down with one of the most extraordinary figures in the world of raptor conservation: Simon Thomsett. Falconer, eagle man, artist, mentor, rescuer, rehabilitator, adventurer, and master craftsman of the wild, Simon is the kind of person scriptwriters would struggle to inven...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Talons of Hope, Dr Andrew Dixon, Science and Conservation Director of the Mohamed bin Zayed Raptor Conservation Fund (MBZRCF) in Abu Dhabi, discusses the Landscape of Fear project in Mongolia. This is the third episode in a three-part series on MBZRCF’s transformative work to conserve the endangered Saker Falcon and improve the health of Mongolia’s steppe ecosys...

Send us Fan Mail As we closed out 2025 , this special January 2026 episode of Talons of Hope pauses to reflect on the stories, people, and places that shaped our first season. Across ten episodes, we travelled from tropical forests and open grasslands to remote islands, vast steppes, and the Arctic tundra. We heard from scientists, conservation leaders, community champions, and field practitioners...

Send us Fan Mail For years an unseen hazard hung over the steppe. Standard distribution poles were silently killing thousands of raptors each year, including Saker Falcons. In this episode, Dr Andrew Dixon explains how leadership from Abu Dhabi, later anchored by the Mohamed bin Zayed Raptor Conservation Fund, helped Mongolia confront the crisis and retrofit 27,000 power poles across the country....

Send us Fan Mail What does it take to bring a national bird back from the brink? In this opening episode of our three-part Talons of Hope special on the Mohamed bin Zayed Raptor Conservation Fund's signature project in Mongolia, Dr. Andrew Dixon—the Partners for Raptors Lifetime Achievement Award honoree and MBZRCF’s Science & Conservation Director—tells the inside story of how an Abu Dha...

Send us Fan Mail Across the world’s scattered islands, from the volcanic ridges of the Philippines to the icy fjords of Tierra del Fuego, live some of the rarest and most extraordinary birds of prey on Earth. These are the island raptors —hawks, owls, eagles, and falcons that evolved in isolation, mastering ecosystems shaped by wind, salt, and solitude. But that same isolation now places them in p...

Send us Fan Mail In this inspiring episode of Talons of Hope , we sit down with Dr. Laurie Goodrich —Sarkis Acopian Director of Conservation Science at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary—and explore what it takes to build the next generation of true conservation leaders. Drawing on decades of raptor migration data, groundbreaking studies on kestrel declines and broad‑winged hawk wintering behavior, Laurie sh...

Send us Fan Mail Vultures prevent disease, recycle nutrients, and even reduce greenhouse gas emissions — yet they face extinction at an alarming rate. These birds are the silent guardians of our ecosystems, nature’s clean-up crew that protect both wildlife and human health. Beyond ecology, they are also woven into human culture and history — from ancient Egyptian deities to Indigenous traditions t...

Send us Fan Mail  What happens when an injured hawk, eagle, falcon, or owl beats the odds, survives rehabilitation, and is released back into the wild? Do they truly make it? Do they matter? In this episode of Talons of Hope , host Munir Virani talks with Dr. Christian Hagen — Senior Research Scientist and Associate Professor at Oregon State University — about a groundbreaking study that combed th...

Send us Fan Mail In this compelling episode of Talons of Hope , Dr. Munir Virani sits down with one of the rising stars in global raptor conservation— Dr. Megan Murgatroyd , a field biologist, scientist, mother, and Director of International Programs at HawkWatch International. From the cliffs of South Africa to the jungles of Indonesia, Megan shares her bold and deeply personal journey tracking a...

Send us Fan Mail Deep in the grasslands of Kenya’s legendary Maasai Mara, where lions roar and wildebeest thunder, a quieter crisis is unfolding. Vultures — nature’s essential clean-up crew — are dying in silence, poisoned by the very communities that once lived in harmony with them. But one woman is fighting back. Meet Valerie Nasoita Sankok , a proud Maasai woman and frontline conservationist. S...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Talons of Hope , we travel to the windswept tundras of Alaska to explore the frontline of polar raptor conservation. Host Munir Virani , of the Mohamed bin Zayed Raptor Conservation Fund (MBZRCF) , speaks with Michael Henderson —field biologist with The Peregrine Fund and PhD candidate at Boise State University —whose groundbreaking research on Gyrfalcons , the...

Send us Fan Mail Poachers laced an elephant carcass with poison in South Africa’s Kruger National Park, and by next morning 123 critically endangered vultures lay dead. Dozens more were barely clinging to life, sparking an urgent race to save them. Amid this carnage, Gareth Tate – head of the Endangered Wildlife Trust’s Birds of Prey Programme – sprang into action. He hooked up a specialized “vult...

Send us Fan Mail Talons of Hope: A Conversation with Dr. Jayson Ibanez – Saving the Soul of the Forest In this powerful and moving episode of Talons of Hope , host Munir Virani speaks with Dr. Jayson Ibanez, the Director of Operations at the Philippine Eagle Foundation (PEF), a pioneering raptor biologist and champion of culture-based conservation. Their conversation delves deep into the remarkabl...

Send us Fan Mail On this special World Environment Day, Talons of Hope takes flight—soaring into the lives, landscapes, and legacies of those fighting to protect the world’s most awe-inspiring birds of prey. Hosted by raptor biologist and conservationist Munir Virani , this launch episode sets the tone for a podcast rooted in urgency, science, and deep storytelling. From the Arctic tundra to the t...