Raptor Fest 2021

Prairie Falcon foraging ecology in the NCA

live-streaming on thursday, August 26th at 12pm MT

Eden’s research is focused on the movement ecology of individual breeding prairie falcons in the Birds of Prey NCA. Using GPS/GSM* wildlife telemetry, she aims to understand how their foraging movements are influenced by habitat composition, disturbance characteristics, and prey abundances to inform future conservation decisions and restoration strategies. She will discuss the goals of the project, how local sagebrush is changing, what they hope to learn about the NCA ecosystem by tracking falcons using GSM telemetry and what is important about where they fly, why prairie falcons (and raptors/predators) are important, their history at the NCA, what field work was like, and how results might affect future conservation or restoration. There'll be a lot of photos, a flight animation of "a day in the life of a male Prairie Falcon" and some maps of where they go after they leave the NCA, and why they leave.

*GSM = global system for mobile communication -i.e. movement data is transmitted through cellular network