---
title: "Bird Abatement Falconer"
description: "Uses trained hawks and falcons to scare nuisance birds away from airports, landfills, farms, vineyards and buildings, under a federal abatement permit."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/bird-abatement-falconer"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Bird Abatement Falconer

**Category:** Personal Care and Service · **SOC code:** 39-2011 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 39-2011.00

Uses trained hawks and falcons to scare nuisance birds away from airports, landfills, farms, vineyards and buildings, under a federal abatement permit.

Also advertised as: Abatement Falconer; Bird Control Falconer; Falconer; Bird Abatement Specialist; Raptor Handler.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $39,990 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $19.22/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $29,600 to $75,490, with the middle half between $33,740 and $53,580
- **Total US employment:** 18,770
- **Typical entry education:** High school
- **Preparation required:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +4.2% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 6,500 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 61/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 18,770 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $29,600 |
| 25th | $33,740 |
| 50th (median) | $39,990 |
| 75th | $53,580 |
| 90th | $75,490 |
| Mean (average) | $47,020 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| VA | $62,960 | $62,273 | 720 |
| AL | $55,700 | $62,709 | 170 |
| OR | $55,520 | $53,715 | 140 |
| CA | $49,060 | $44,310 | 2,270 |
| NY | $48,790 | $45,209 | 970 |
| NJ | $46,690 | $42,912 | 480 |
| WA | $46,420 | $43,378 | 360 |
| IL | $45,830 | $45,849 | 680 |
| CT | $45,800 | $44,204 | 290 |
| IN | $45,270 | $48,506 | 380 |
| GA | $45,250 | $46,992 | 800 |
| MT | $44,680 | $47,208 | 80 |
| CO | $44,290 | $42,978 | 330 |
| MA | $43,580 | $41,208 | 510 |
| IA | $43,020 | $49,019 | 180 |

32 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 47 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/bird-abatement-falconer/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/bird-abatement-falconer.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 47,800 in the 2025–2035 base year to 49,700 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 2,000 jobs, or +4.2%. About as fast as average: 4.2% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 6,500 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** High school diploma or equivalent (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** Moderate-term on-the-job training.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 44.4% |
| Less than a High School Diploma | 22.6% |
| Some College Courses | 16.6% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 7.9% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 6.8% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 1.8% |

## What the work involves

- Fly trained falcons and hawks to haze pest birds
- Survey bird activity and patterns at client sites
- Train, feed and manage the condition of raptors
- Combine falconry with other deterrents such as pyrotechnics
- Maintain abatement permit records and reports
- Plan abatement schedules around weather and bird behavior
- Advise clients on habitat changes that reduce bird problems

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Speaking — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Instructing — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Psychology — importance 3.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Sales and Marketing — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Problem Sensitivity — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Information Ordering — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Clarity — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Fluency of Ideas — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Realistic (R), Social (S), Investigative (I).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| R — Realistic | 6.52 |
| S — Social | 3.61 |
| I — Investigative | 3.39 |
| E — Enterprising | 3.05 |
| C — Conventional | 2.97 |
| A — Artistic | 1.76 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ISTJ | 77.1 |
| ESTJ | 69.2 |
| ISTP | 68.9 |
| ISFJ | 67.9 |
| ESTP | 61.9 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Animal Trainer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/animal-trainer) — median $39,990
- [Animal Caretaker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/animal-caretaker) — median $35,360
- [Animal Breeder](https://nuecareer.com/careers/animal-breeder) — median $51,130
- [Veterinary Assistant and Laboratory Animal Caretaker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/veterinary-assistant-and-laboratory-animal-caretaker) — median $38,150
- [Animal Control Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/animal-control-worker) — median $45,660
- [Farmworker, Farm, Ranch, and Aquacultural Animal](https://nuecareer.com/careers/farmworker-farm-ranch-and-aquacultural-animal) — median $36,670
- [Exercise Trainer and Group Fitness Instructor](https://nuecareer.com/careers/exercise-trainer-and-group-fitness-instructor) — median $47,160
- [Veterinary Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/veterinary-technician) — median $47,380
- [Professional Athlete](https://nuecareer.com/careers/professional-athlete) — median $66,710
- [Referee](https://nuecareer.com/careers/referee) — median $40,710

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2025–2035. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/bird-abatement-falconer