Breeding Season Habitat Selection and Use of Ferruginous Hawks
Ferruginous hawks, North America’s largest hawk species, are considered endangered in Alberta and threatened in Canada due to vast declines in their population numbers since 1977. These declines have been attributed to the conversion of native grasslands to cultivated land, the species’ sensitivity to human disturbance, and limited nesting structures currently on the landscape. The objective of this study is to determine what landscape attributes, such as landcover type, are selected for and how often they are used during the breeding season in order to recommend where to invest in constructing artificial nesting poles. We captured 12 male Ferruginous Hawks and outfitted them with telemetry transmitters near nesting sites in southern Alberta, allowing for continuous GPS monitoring of these individuals over a minimum of 2 years. Data was used to calculate the 95% Minimum Convex Polygon to use as home range, and the proportion of landcover type was calculated within these home ranges, and the proportion of GPS points calculated within each habitat type. It was found that grassland and cropland had similar mean proportions among home ranges, while human development was rarely included (F2,33=10.48, p=0.0003). Habitat use had similar results, with cropland and grassland used at similar rates and home range significantly avoided (F2,33=8.3761, p=0.001143). This suggests that artificial nesting platforms may be constructed on cultivated land in order to increase nest structure availability, as this has previously been found to be a limiting factor for ferruginous hawks in southern Alberta
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Disclaimer: The following study and website were developed as part of an assignment for the class RENR 580 from a subset of data. Therefore, results should be considered preliminary in nature.