Some like watching birds, while others want to work with birds of prey
At the age of 15, Manuel Maier discovered an interesting hobby for himself, training falcons. Today, the 36-years-old still continues to train birds for hunting.
“In 1995, at the beginning of my career, little was known about this profession in Latin America. So I began to research on how to train falcons and then bought my first baby falcon and began to train him,” Maier told Sputnik.
Maier, who lives in the metropolitan area of El Prado, was absolutely fascinated by the idea.
“My parents actually thought I had gone crazy,” Maier told Sputnik.
Once, he noticed a falcon flying in the sky, and followed him all the way to his nest. Since then, every day for 6 months, Maier went to watch the little falcons grow and observed how they learnt to fly.
“From the first moment, I knew that the best moment to catch the little ones is when they learn how to fly. After several attempts, I managed to grab one of them,” Maier told Sputnik. “I called her Arwen. Together we caught 84 birds.”
Maier explained that in order to have healthy and strong falcons, it is necessary to feed them with what they eat in their natural habitat. So the man fed his precious bird with specially grown mice.
After two years of living together, Maier released Arwen so he could return back to the wild.
Maier always dreamed of training buteos, a highly intelligent predator. One day, as Maier wondered around the local zoo, he spotted buteos among other birds of prey. After having talked with the director of the zoo, he received permission to take the bird home. The only problem was that the bird was extremely aggressive and even the worker, who fed the buteos was terrified of it.
“It was not hard to receive permission, it was impossible to catch her. I tried every way to get ahold of her, but nothing worked. I had to invent a special system to catch it,” Maier told Sputnik. “After a while, I began to train the bird. I was able to tame it. He lives with me till this moment.”
The man then began to film video clips and put them up in the Internet. Soon enough, Nick Fox, a world famous falcon tamer, was attracted by Maier’s interest and invited him to work together for 6 months on his falcon farm in Wales.
After gaining experience in Britain, Manuel Maier traveled to Spain, where he worked at the airport, making sure that the birds did not fall in the aircraft’s turbines. His skills have helped avoid many plane crashes.
In 2008, Manuel launched a joint project with his mentor, Fernando Feás, and shared his knowledge and experience with Uruguay.
Today, they own the Intercepta Uruguay Company, dedicated to controlling fauna with the help of trained birds of prey.
Why not dive after a golf ball? Believe it or not, some have it as a job!
The worst nightmare of any golfer is to lose a ball in muddy water as it can be gone once and for all. But not in Uruguay! Two brothers Daniel and César Barreiro, dress up in diving suits and save the day. They dive after gold balls and return them to the golfers.
“Balls that fall in water, gather together,” Daniel Barreiro told Sputnik.
Daniel and his brother decided to combine two of their passions – diving and golf. Today, they work at the Punta Carretas and La Thaon golf clubs, collecting golf balls. They simply do it because they love it.
“The club has a lake. Each time, thousands of balls end up on the bottom of it. So we decided we will be those, who collect balls from the bottom of the lake,” Daniel told Sputnik.
Two years ago, the two returned 2,750 balls from the bottom of the lake in less than in an hour. However, the record is held by Cesar, who returned 5,000 balls at the La Thaon golf club.
