An interactive tool to investigate the impacts of human activities on raptors
Conservation of raptors is a global priority, but with so many complicated human infrastructures and their corresponding threats to raptors, it is hard to pinpoint which human activities do the most damage to raptor conservation in any given area. Veterinarians and pathologists in localized areas have long recognized that raptors perish due to a variety of human activities. But at what point do repeated mortalities from a single human activity in an area cross the line from unlucky (to the individual) to unsustainable (for the population)? We created a tool that translates raptor mortalities into their population-scale consequences, aiding managers in understanding where and when certain human activities inadvertently hinder conservation efforts.
The Raptor Health software allows wildlife managers to merge their historical raptor population and veterinary data to quantify how mortalities have altered population dynamics in their jurisdictions relative to a hypothetical system that did not experience those deaths. Raptor biologists may use the software to compare annual abundances of hatchlings, immature raptors, and breeding raptors, as well as several types of population viability metrics. The software is further valuable for ranking the impact of several sources of mortality to ascertain which have had the most significant negative impact, as well as clear other sources of mortality from blame.
While the Raptor Health software should not be used in isolation for making resource policy, it can be helpful in disentangling complexity to understand what really matters in the conservation of viable raptor populations in any given jurisdiction.
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