How Falconry Turned One Man's Life Right-Side Up
(What a Superb Owl) 
After spending his childhood on the mean streets of D.C., Rodney Stotts found new purpose as a raptor expert and role model for school kids.
Mary Jo DiLonardo
Published February 9, 2022
The first time Rodney Stotts held a raptor on his arm, it changed his life.
He was 28 years old, a former drug dealer who had lost friends—far, far too many friends—to addiction and street violence in Washington, D.C. His mother was a crack addict and dealer; his father had been murdered when Stotts was 16, poisoned by the girlfriend he’d beaten. Rodney had escaped that life a few years earlier by an unlikely route: volunteering with eight others from gritty southeast D.C. neighborhoods for a small nonprofit called the Earth Conservation Corps. It was their job to clean trash from Lower Beaverdam Creek, a junk-filled tributary of the Anacostia River, often referred to as one of the most polluted waterways in the country.
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Thus it was an owl named Mr. Hoots that truly upended Stotts’s life, and set him on a path to becoming one of the few African-American falconers in the country—one who uses the powerful allure of birds of prey to reach youngsters who, like him when he was a kid, need a new path.
Read the rest of this wonderful, inspiring story here: https://www.treehugger.com/master-falconer-gives-birds-second-chances-5218153
Visit Rodney's website: https://rodneysraptors.webs.com/
He has written a book, Bird Brother: A Falconer's Journey and the Healing Power of Wildlife
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