This man, photographed in Lijang, a city in The Three Parallel Rivers Region of Yunnan, China, said his eagle caught all of its own food – although, he admitted, it was often rabbits he purchased and released for the bird to catch.
Tibetan cowboy.
The fake cowboy and 4 other men, all dressed in identical outfits, each with a golden eagle, stroll the streets looking for tourists willing to pay10 Yuan, about $1.50, to have their photo taken with an eagle perched on their arm. And business is good.
The eagles are allowed to hunt on their own – but the owners recapture the birds before they can eat their prey. “If it is hungry, it will come back,” one cowboy explained. “But if it eats until it is full, it will fly away forever.”
Source: Audubon
First Light Productions 
Reblogged this on yogazazen.
Deeply tragic. On the original blog, there’s a comment along the lines I think make most sense (although unfortunately I think the commenter goes too far and will lose any support because of that). The essence of the problem seems to be that there is no sense among these people that it is wrong to take young eagles from the nest and exploit these magnificent birds for profit. I don’t imagine they live long. Actually, it reminds me of the rather horrible justification in The Life of Pi for zoos – to the effect that the animals are much better off in zoos because they have everything they need and these birds too, I’m sure their ‘owners’ think, have everything they need. Everything, that is, except the ability to live according to the evolved nature that drives them. That is, they can’t hunt freely, can’t eat freely, can’t fly freely, can’t mate or interact with others of their own species freely. No one’s saying it’s a paradise out there in the wild. Humans have made sure that there’s less food and more pollution now for wild Nature than ever before. But is that a justification for stealing more wild animals? I don’t think so. Ironically, perhaps, I’m taking my daughter falconing tomorrow. But there the birds are bred in captivity and are part of a rehabilitation programme, so that, of any brood hatched, at least some of the young are prepared for life in the wild and then released appropriately.
I hope one day those eagles are able to escape — forever!