For Doug Pineo, creating tiny, hand-crafted leather hoods and other specialized gear for the sport of falconry has been a labor of love for 40 years.


Though his business, Pineo Falconry Furniture, is only a side venture he pursues when hes not at his day job as a stream and shoreline specialist with the Washington state Department of Ecology, the company has become well known in the falconry world.


Pineo started making falconry equipment as a teenager, even before he owned his first bird.


I think I knew I was going to be a falconer by the time I was 13, he says.


He put together his first price list when he was 18 years old, shortly after obtaining his first falcon, an American kestrel.


There were few places to get falconry equipment, he says. A lot of what you could get wasnt very good, so I began making my own.


Today, Pineo Falconry Furniture, which Pineo owns with his wife Trish, sells handmade hoods, specialized hawking vests and bags, leashes, gloves, and hardware used in falconry, the ancient sport of hunting game birds and other small game animals with a trained raptor.


Pineo, 58, cites Aldo Leopold and Yvon Chouinard as inspirations for his business and environmental ethic. Leopold was an early conservationist and pioneer in U.S. wildlife management. Chouinard, a climber and falconer, founded Patagonia Inc., a Ventura, Calif.-based outdoor clothing company thats known for its environmental activism.


Pineo says he donates at least 1 percent of the proceeds from his falconry business to groups that promote conservation, ecological restoration, and the traditions of fishing and hunting.


While Pineo is in charge of design and manufacturing at the business, Trish, who also works as a private rehabilitation counselor, keeps the books and schedules production.


I couldnt do it without her, Pineo says. She is meticulous, organized, and a good manager. You couldnt do this as a grownup business without quality bookkeeping.


He declines to disclose the ventures annual revenues, but says last year they grew 12 percent. We would have grown a lot more if it wasnt just nights and weekends, he adds. I give my best 40 to 60 hours a week to the Department of Ecology.


Pineo Falconry is perhaps best known for its fine-leather falcon hoods, and Pineo asserts hes been making them longer than anyone in North America.


The hoods, which fit snugly over a raptors head, block out light and have a calming effect on the raptors as theyre transported to the field. The hoods also prevent the birds from taking flight prematurely during a hunt.


In his basement workshop, Pineo designs the hoods, cuts out the leather parts for them, sews or glues them together by hand, and molds the hoods into the proper shape on blocks, which also are of his own design.


He says the edges of the leather hood parts must have a tapered cut so they allow the seams to be joined tightly so no light can get in. He uses a hidden cross-stitch for the seams. Theres no machine that can do that stitching, he says.


Pineo puts two to six hours of labor into making each hood, depending on whether its sewn or glued, he says. The business sells them for between $80 and $120 each.


Pineo also designs hawking bags and vests, which are assembled by sewing contractors here. The bags and vests have large pockets that can be opened easily or secured with one hand, which is essential for falconers, who hold their raptor with the other hand. Bags and vests sell for $65 to $130.


Such vests typically are sold with olive and brown coloring, but Pineo Falconry Furniture now also offers one in blaze orange, because they are growing in popularity among conventional bird hunters who use shotguns, he says.


Pineo says he tries to buy materials from U.S. suppliers who use environmentally friendly manufacturing processes. What he cant obtain in the U.S., he seeks from suppliers in other democratic countries.


For instance, he buys the fine-grain calf skin leather for the hoods from a tannery in England, because the tanning process for the leather of the quality that holds his precision stitching has died out in this country, he says.


We built our reputation on quality and innovation, he says.


Pineo Falconry sells items to customers all over the world, mostly through its Web site, at www.pineofalconry.com.


Although his retirement from the Department of Ecology is still several years off, he expects that when that time comes, hell put more time into Pineo Falconry and increase sales greatly.


I think we can triple it easily, he says.


Falconry community


Practitioners of falconry belong to a small, but growing community. Pineo says there are about 4,500 falconers in the U.S. and fewer than 2,000 in Canada and Mexico.


There are many more falconers today than there were when I started in the 60s, though, he says.


All birds of prey, even those raised in captivity, are regulated by the international Migratory Bird Treaty Act.


Falconry is highly controlled through federal and state restrictions and takes a considerable commitment by anyone entering the sport. New falconers must apprentice with a licensed falconer for two years before they can qualify to keep a raptor, Pineo says.


We want to make sure people dont enter it lightly and dont promote a culture of pet keeping, he says.


Pineo currently keeps four raptors, a peregrine falcon and three gyrfalcons, in pens called mews outside of his home in a rural area southwest of Spokane.


He hunts on private property by permission of the landowner, and he tries to fly the falcons regularly during falconry season for upland birds, which usually runs from Aug. 1 to March 15 in Washington state.


During a hunt, Pineo releases the hawk to circle overhead, then uses a bird dog to flush game birds from cover. He says a falcon usually attacks its prey from above in a diving maneuver, called a stoop, in which the hawk slashes at the prey at a high rate of speed, disabling the game bird and knocking it out of the sky.


The falcon usually then lands on its catch on the ground, and Pineo slowly approaches the raptor and exchanges the game bird for food.


Pineo says he enjoys eating game birds, especially pheasants and Hungarian partridges.


We eat game quite a bit, he says. I wouldnt hunt what I dont want to eat.


Contact Mike McLean at (509) 344-1266 or via e-mail at mikem@spokanejournal.com.