Wind speed and cliff exposure may shape Barbary falcon breeding success in Saudi Arabia, according to a new field study by researchers from the National Center for Falcons and the National Center for Wildlife. The study, published in September in the international scientific journal Life, is the center’s first peer-reviewed study to appear in a journal ranked in the first quartile by the Journal Citation Reports, the Saudi Press Agency reported.
The State's Conservation Machine
Monif Al-Rashidi of the University of Ha’il and the National Centre for Falcons, along with Mohammed Shobrak of the National Centre for Wildlife, conducted the study. They monitored 59 Barbary falcon breeding sites in northwestern and southwestern Saudi Arabia during the 2026 breeding season. The researchers examined environmental variables and nesting-site characteristics, including wind speed, rainfall, temperature and the orientation of cliff faces in relation to prevailing winds. The language is scientific. The machinery around it is not exactly neutral.
The findings showed that the sites produced an average of 1.97 chicks each. Statistical analysis indicated that a 0.678 metre-per-second increase in average seasonal wind speed was associated with an expected 19.5 percent decline in chick productivity. Greater exposure of cliff faces to prevailing winds was linked to an expected productivity decline of 18.7 percent. The numbers are tidy. The birds, less so.
The researchers said the findings could help authorities assess suitable locations for releasing falcons back into the wild and improve conservation programmes. They recommended continued monitoring over several breeding seasons, as well as more detailed field measurements to strengthen the assessment of release sites, SPA noted. In other words, the study feeds the administrative pipeline: observe, classify, release, manage.
Research, Release, and the Apparatus
The research forms part of the center’s efforts to support specialised scientific studies, expand knowledge of falcons and their habitats, and apply research findings to release and conservation programmes. That’s the official script. It turns habitat into a managed object and conservation into a state project with paperwork, field visits and approved outcomes.
In May 2026, the National Center for Falcons conducted a field visit to inspect and document Barbary falcon nesting sites in the Asir region, in cooperation with the National Center for Wildlife and the Special Forces for Environmental Security. The visit formed part of the center’s Hadad initiative, launched in 2021 to protect endangered falcons, restore them to their natural habitats and promote sustainable falconry practices. The collaboration is plain enough: wildlife, security forces and a conservation bureaucracy moving together under one administrative roof.
The article gives no sign of grassroots organizing, mutual aid, or local community control over the work. What it does show is a tightly managed conservation system, with research, inspection and release all routed through official institutions. The falcons are studied as subjects of policy. The policy belongs to the state.
Exhibition Season, Managed Nature
The Saudi International Falcons and Hunting Exhibition will be held from Oct. 1 to 10 in Malham, north of Riyadh. The event sits neatly beside the conservation language: endangered birds on one side, exhibition branding on the other, all of it folded into the same official ecosystem. The state doesn’t just regulate nature here. It stages it, studies it and sells the image of stewardship while keeping the controls in place.
The study may offer useful clues about breeding site conditions. It also shows how even conservation gets absorbed into the apparatus: monitored sites, ranked journals, security cooperation and release programmes run from above. The birds don’t get a vote.