An eagle doesn't need you. It's perfectly capable of surviving on its own in the wild.
And you have to convince it through your own ingenuity that you're a positive force in its life and worth sticking around.
Miles is a unique case. He can never be released back into the wild. He doesn't realize that he's an eagle.
I read a book called Arranged for Falcons by Steve Bodio and I didn't even know that falconry existed.
As soon as I saw that book I just thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen, ever heard of and knew I had to do it.
I'd never been hunting before and I'd never trained an animal before so it was baptism by fire.
My job as a falconer is to keep a bird of prey happy and healthy and fit and active.
Everything has to be positive and if it doesn't like a situation it will fly away.
In the United States there's only 10 or 12 people that have golden eagles and far fewer that hunt with them.
In 2009 I received a full right scholarship to Mongolia which funded me to live in Mongolia for a year.
My purpose there was to apprentice under a master eagle falconer and through his guidance trap and train and hunt a golden eagle of my own.
Everything I learned there I've applied to my own eagle falconry in America because there are so few of us I needed that other information to learn how to fly an eagle properly.
So Miles was taken from a nest as a downy is we call it a baby and somebody tried to raise him as a pet and he was eventually confiscated.
He was fairly weak because he hadn't flown hardly.
He was used to begging for food or bullying people out of food and my job was to teach him that he could go out and catch his own meal.
Because he's imprinted on humans he will always look to humans for food and interaction and it's not safe for him to be released.
But through falconry techniques I'm able to give him as close to a wildlife as possible.
A relationship with an eagle is an equal one.
You don't dominate the bird and the bird doesn't dominate you.
It's an equal partnership and that's the only way that it can work.
It's like no other bond that I know of in the animal world.
It's tenuous but beautiful and you enjoy every moment of it while it lasts.
