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Beautiful magnificent birds? Well, sure, I guess so.
But I'm guessing you've never had them wipe out your chickens? I've seen them do it. They are remorseless and implacable.
I gave up the whole majestic notion when it comes to animals. They are animals, and they do what animals do. Nothing at all romantic about them.
As for catch and release, well... that isn't such a hot idea, either.
Move an animal elsewhere, and the critter will do the things you hated - there. Or it will die under claws of it's new animal "friends," starve from competition or be killed by someone else.
Here's a little tidbit on the matter from our good friend Bob Plamondon,
www.plamondon.com:
(speaking about his predatory crow problems)...
"How about shooting them? What worked was shooting them. After shooting two crows on my main pasture, they've kept away. The back pasture has fewer crows but is still something of a problem, since it's much harder for me to sneak up on them over there...
Predators are smart and observant. I rarely hear people mention this, but predators are smarter and more observant than people give them credit for. Now that I've killed two crows, at least a hundred are avoiding my farm. I've seen the same effect with four-footed predators: when the farmers and the local trapper are on their toes about dispatching livestock-eaters, the predators not only get the message, they pass it on to their young, and a balance is struck.
The predators eat wildlife rather than livestock, and this means that both predators and livestock get to have a normal span. But if you don't kill any predators, their caution fades. After a couple of generations, the mothers stop teaching farm-avoidance to their young, and then the clueless young predators kill a lot of livestock before inevitably being killed themselves.
Which is a bad deal all around. To misquote the song, 'Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be chicken eaters!'"
