The Falcon Thief by Joshua Hammer

The Falcon Thief: A True Tale of Adventure, Treachery, and the Hunt for the Perfect Bird
by Joshua Hammer
Simon & Schuster, 2020

Packing for a flight can be stressful. Fitting all of a trip’s necessities into a bag that falls below an airline’s weight limit is often challenging for the overpackers among us. One savvy flier in 2010 found a way around this modern concern by testing out an innovative concept: taping his cargo to his body. The only problem? This man was actually acting as a human incubator for fourteen eggs of the bird of prey species, the peregrine falcon.

Perfect for readers of Kirk Wallace Johnson’s The Feather Thief, Joshua Hammer’s similarly titled The Falcon Thief unravels the bizarre tale of Jeffrey Lendrum, beginning with his early egg snatching during his childhood in Rhodesia (now known as Zimbabwe). His boyhood hobby prepared him for his eventual side job as an adult: the profitable, yet illegal procurement of the offspring of wild falcons for Middle Eastern elites.

Lendrum’s initial head-scratching crime was, as so many things are, motivated by a simple case of supply and demand. As the author explains, overflowing pockets and a new sport of falcon racing in the Middle East created a lust not only for the rarest birds in the world, but ones not merely purchased from an aboveboard breeder:

This money-fueled globalization also has an underside: a thriving black market for wild birds of prey, driven by wealthy enthusiasts who believe that falcons stolen from nests are innately superior to those bred in captivity, and who are willing to break the law to get them.

Exact price tags for the eggs on the black market are not known, but estimates figure one alone could bring in tens of thousands of dollars, depending on what bird is inside. One doesn’t have to think too hard about why Jeffrey Lendrum would rappel down a cliff to scoop up the equivalent of golden eggs.

People like Jeffrey Lendrum, eggs strapped to his stomach like a middle-aged, mummy-Easter bunny hybrid, contribute to a trade that would strip the Earth bare if there was a dollar in it. His actions, in line with most wildlife crime, demonstrate an astonishing level of entitlement. Lendrum even dares to excuse his behavior with claims that the birds would be better off, safer in captivity than amid the threats of the wild. It makes one wonder if such a person could ever see themself as just another predator of the species, no more moral than a nest-raiding snake.

Yet, as Hammer skillfully draws, Lendrum is frustratingly likeable, winning over not just readers, but authorities with his personable charms. Even Andy Williams, the wildlife detective called into handle the strange egg smuggling case at the core of this book, was eventually disarmed, so to speak, by Lendrum. Hammer characterizes the rapport and extended relationship between the lawman and the tree climber in a way that feels like a natural history spin on “Catch Me If You Can.”

By sympathizing with the devil, Hammer is able to dig deeper into Lendrum’s psyche, proposing that the falcon thief’s motives may be more complex than mere cupidity. These arguments appear to have weight to them, but perhaps that’s merely wishful thinking on the part of the audience, wanting to believe that the antihero can turn hero. Each time Lendrum is caught with a figurative basketful of eggs, his heartfelt proclamations in the aftermath about getting back on the straight and narrow almost have us believing his line that he’s done with the nature heists. Almost.

Hammer covers all sides (or is it surfaces?) of this egg-shaped story, giving readers a full picture of the situation with judicious research and insider information gleaned from lengthy interviews, not only with individuals connected to the headline-making saga, but even with the falcon thief himself. The book is expertly organized and the writing is sharp; Lendrum’s risky adventures obtaining eggs, sometimes in the most inaccessible nooks and crannies of a cliff wall, come to life, and the balanced storytelling will give readers an aerial view of this story, a case study of the war between the thriving wildlife black market and crime fighters working, at times in vain, against it. Slipping as perfectly into the newly developing natural history-true crime subgenre as it does into a carry-on, The Falcon Thief both informs and thrills.

—Olive Fellows is a young professional and Booktuber (at http://youtube.com/c/abookolive) living in Pittsburgh. Her work has appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.