Greetings from the beautiful City of Trees: Boise, Idaho!
Here at the headquarters of The Peregrine Fund, the Global Raptor Impact Network (GRIN) team continues to make slow but steady progress as we work to rebuild GRIN into the world’s preeminent source of raptor information. What are the latest and greatest developments? Read on to find out.
Conservation Assessment of North America’s Raptors
Much of the world’s raptor research is conducted in the USA and Canada, yet there is currently no clear list of research or conservation priorities within these countries. With this in mind, the GRIN team collaborated with biologists from HawkWatch International and Hawk Mountain Sanctuary to assess the status of all 56 breeding raptor species in the US and Canada in order to determine priorities for future conservation efforts. The team drew data from existing studies and conservation databases. Their results, published in the paper “Conservation assessment of raptors within the USA and Canada,” are out now in the journal Biological Conservation.
Several species immediately stood out as conservation priorities. Atop this list is the critically endangered California Condor (Gymnogyps californianus). Other high-priority species include the ‘Io (Buteo solitarius), which is rarely studied and today found only on the island of Hawai’i, and the rapidly declining Snowy Owl (Bubo scandiacus) and Spotted Owl (Strix occidentalis).
The study also examined narrower taxonomic or geographic designations for other species at high risk. Subspecies at risk include the endangered Puerto Rican Broad-winged Hawk (Buteo platypterus brunnescens) and Puerto Rican Sharp-shinned Hawk (Accipiter striatus venator), as well as the possibly extinct Virgin Islands subspecies of the Puerto Rican Screech-owl (Megascops nudipes newtoni). Regional concerns include the marked decline of the American Kestrel (Falco sparverius) in the northeastern United States, declines of the Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) in western North America, and the near-extirpation of the Short-eared Owl (Asio flammeus) in Pennsylvania.
Lastly, some pressing conservation priorities apply “across the board,” affecting nearly every raptor species in the two countries. These include habitat protection, updating study methodologies to produce more reliable population trend and status assessments, and limiting anthropogenic threats such as lead poisoning, climate change, rodenticides, energy infrastructure, persecution, and more. Although the study did not specifically examine threats, continued efforts to monitor them and mitigate their effects on raptor populations will be crucial to future conservation work.
Despite these priorities, some bright spots stood out. The Turkey Vulture (Cathartes aura) and Black Vulture (Coragyps atratus) have experienced huge population gains and today number as the most abundant raptors in the United States and Canada. After the 20th century declines caused by DDT, species such as Cooper’s Hawks (Accipiter cooperii), Bald Eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus), and Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) have also seen population increases. And in general, the status of raptors across the USA and Canada appears to be secure.
A “Detailed” Video: How to Enter Detailed Observations in the GRIN App
Another GRIN newsletter, another new GRIN app tutorial to announce! The penultimate in our planned series of five tutorial videos, the latest addition picks up where our previous tutorial left off, diving into the “detailed” part of the app’s “detailed observation mode.” The tutorial is available to watch now in both English and Spanish.
As the first and only app purpose-built for conducting global raptor research, the GRIN app comes with everything you need to record a host of data about your raptor sightings. Want to record an immature male sparverius subspecies American Kestrel perched four meters high on a utility pole eating a DeKay’s brownsnake (Storeria dekayi)? GRIN can do that. Placing metal bands and plastic color bands on two 34-day-old Ridgway’s Hawk (Buteo ridgwayi) nestlings? Yup, GRIN can handle that too. Found an adult female red-phase Western Screech-owl (Megascops kennicottii) with a broken left humerus on the side of the road after she was hit by a car? We certainly hope not, but if you do, you can record it with just a few taps in the GRIN app—and this newest tutorial will teach you how.
You’ve now got all the knowledge you need to conduct a raptor survey with the GRIN app: how to start a survey and enter weather and observer information, how to quickly record a sighting in a busy area, and how to record a detailed raptor sighting with just about any data you could wish to collect. What’s left? How to take all the data you’ve collected and prepare it for analysis. Our final tutorial will delve into GRIN’s data management options, including how to upload your data to the GRIN DataBank, how to transfer your data to other devices, and more. We’re hoping to have this final tutorial video completed by this winter, so stay tuned!
Have questions about the GRIN app that our videos don’t answer? Found a bug you need to report? Our staff is only an email away—contact us at grin@peregrinefund.org and we’ll be happy to help.
