Anna Giordano was only 15 when she found her true calling. In 1981, near her Sicilian hometown of Messina, she watched helplessly as poachers unleashed their fire from cement bunkers on the hundreds of honey buzzards, hawks and other birds migrating over the narrow straits between Sicily and the Italian mainland. After seeing 17 birds shot out of the sky, she vowed that "this was the beginning of the end for the poachers."
That was easier said than done. In the macho culture of Sicily and Calabria, just across the straits, there was a tradition of hunting migrating raptors. So when...