Grayson isn’t the type of friend I normally make when I travel. For one thing, while I enthusiastically count Grayson among my friends, he doesn’t even know I exist. For another, Grayson looks a bit different than most of my friends. Grayson is a harpy eagle, and he is one of the ambassador birds at the Peregrine Fund’s World Center for Birds of Prey in Boise, Idaho.

Magnificent in shades of gray and white, Grayson is pretty big. Harpy eagles can weigh up to twenty pounds, and that size, combined with their gray headdress feathers, give them a rather menacing appearance. But I’m not fooled, and I’m immediately in love with my new friend.

Grayson is one of more than a dozen new friends I make in an afternoon spent at the center, which operates as the visitors side of the Peregrine Fund’s headquarters. The birds here are ambassadors, mainly having been raised in captivity, likely unable to survive in the wild if released. They serve to educate people on the importance of the Peregrine Fund’s work breeding and maintaining these magnificent birds of prey that are so integral to their natural environments and the balance within them.

The Peregrine Fund was founded in 1970 by Cornell ornithology professor Tom Cade in response to its namesake species, the peregrine falcon, being added to the US endangered species list. Cade believed that breeding the birds in captivity and then releasing them into the wild would help the population, which had drastically fallen due in large part to the pesticide DDT, which weakened falcon eggshells and led to a decline in births.

In 1974, a breeding center opened in Fort Collins, Colorado. Ten years later, in 1984, the entire operation relocated here to Boise. (The story given to me is that a brewery wanted a highway exit that would go through the Fort Collins property. With the money they received for selling that property, the Peregrine Fund relocated here, combining that cash influx with a land donation by Morley Nelson. More on him in a moment.)

The breeding program was a stunning success. Between 1974 and the end of the century, the Peregrine Fund released more than 4,000 peregrine falcons into the wild, leading to the removal of the species from the endangered list! (Actually, the majority of current wild peregrines descend from these birds that were bred in captivity.)

Here at the World Center for Birds of Prey, there is of course an ambassador peregrine falcon. But it is napping when I am there, after a day spent celebrating the renewal of its species with guests.

Buoyed by the success of the peregrine breeding program, the Peregrine Fund has moved to work with vulnerable populations of birds of prey all over the world, and a room at the center goes through some of the programs. In all, more than 20 species have been actively hatched and raised, and more than 100 have been studied and monitored.

One of the signature programs today is repopulating California condors. In 1987, all remaining California condors were captured from the wild, with the species down to a mere 27 (some sources say 22) individuals. In an effort between the Los Angeles Zoo and San Diego Wild Animal Park, a breeding program was undertaken, one that the Peregrine Fund joined. More than 100 baby condors have been born here at the center. In 1991, the first California condors were released back into the wild, and today, while still critically endangered, the species numbers close to 600.

Three California condors are on display here at the World Center for Birds of Prey, although unlike most of the other ambassador birds, these are not trained to the glove to be new friends for visitors. We can just admire the size of them (wingspans can reach close to ten feet!) and hope their numbers continue to increase.

So why is this all located in Boise, Idaho? Well, do you remember Morley Nelson, who donated the land? I told you we would get back to him. Nelson was a local falconer. Even before getting involved with the Peregrine Fund, he was instrumental getting Idaho to pass protections for birds of prey, and worked with local power companies to make their wires and poles more friendly to large birds. (Basically this means spreading lines out so that a bird can’t touch wires with both wings at once, which would mean death. A model inside the turkey vulture display here at the center illustrates this.)

Morley Nelson owned a large tract of land here. Some he donated to the Peregrine Fund. The rest went to the US Bureau of Land Management, who in 1993 established Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area. (President Obama renamed it in honor of Nelson in 2009, so it is now Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area. If anything needs an acronym, it is this.) The area has the largest concentration of birds of prey in the country, with more than 700 nesting pairs representing 15 different species in its 81 miles along the Snake River.

Visiting the Peregrine Fund’s World Center for Birds of Prey will probably take you about two hours, but can be more if you also decide to see the on-property Archives of Falconry (I didn’t), and see a demonstration of a raptor in flight with one of the staff.

During the less than half hour demonstration, I got to get up close and personal with another new friend. This one was Rosa, a northern aplomado falcon. While the aplomado falcon is not endangered in much of its habitat of Mexico all the way down to South America, it is nearly extinct in the wild here in the US, being reduced to just a tiny part of Texas. Enter the Peregrine Fund, who is working to construct artificial nesting sites to protect falcon eggs and chicks.

Rosa is small, with a wingspan of only a couple feet. Her human friend allows her to fly loose, which she does, swooping over the spectators, soaring above the trees, and disappearing from sight for a bit. But she always returns, lured by the promise of a piece of quail.

Visiting the Peregrine Fund’s World Center for Birds of Prey was not on my original Boise bucket list. It was actually a surprise to me that it even existed here. But it was absolutely worth the time learning about the work of this awesome organization and getting to meet some really cool birds. And yeah, the humans who help them are solid, too.

If your travels bring you to Boise, Idaho – and I hope they do – consider spending a part of a day here. You and your new friends Grayson and Rosa (and all the rest) will definitely enjoy it!

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