NZRAPTOR TRUST - Key Persons

Job Titles:

• Immediate past Chairman of the New Zealand Raptor Trust

His experience was furthered when his dad saved a white-faced owl from a cooking pot on the farm. "This bird was named Bonding, as it became imprinted on the family and would fly out each evening but would return in the morning for breakfast," Skea says. At boarding school he encountered some peers who were using goshawks in falconry. "Together we established a school falconry club and I found myself training and flying a range of birds over my high school years". In 2002 he immigrated to New Zealand. Falconry in New Zealand was illegal and the only way to continue was through rehabilitation. With no local raptor centres, volunteering was not an option and so we looked at creating a facility closer to home" he says. Vaughan Skea is the immediate past Chairman of the New Zealand Raptor Trust and currently treasurer.