Geology topics

Carol L. McIntyre

Publications and source records attributed to Carol L. McIntyre.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

USGS2021

Golden Eagle

The Golden Eagle inhabits a wide range of latitudes and habitats throughout the Palearctic and into northern Africa, where it is largely resident. In North America, its breeding distribution includes most of Canada and Alaska, as well as the western half of the United States and northern and western Mexico. Most eagles that nest in northern Canada and interior and northern Alaska migrate thousands of kilometers to wintering grounds. Southern eagles tend to be resident year-round, but some make northward, latitudinal, or altitudinal migrations when not on territory. During the non-breeding season, Golden Eagle occurs in Mexico, every U.S. state, and in the southern parts of Canada. It is most common in western North America, especially near open spaces that provide hunting habitat with ample prey, near cliffs or trees that supply nesting sites, and topography that creates updrafts essential for flight. Recent research has shown that the Golden Eagle is more common than once thought in eastern North America as well as in forested areas continent-wide, and that young individuals may summer in large numbers in the vast and productive wetlands of northernmost North America.

Book chapter↗

USGS2017

Coming to terms about describing Golden Eagle reproduction

Clearly defined terms are essential for reporting and understanding research findings, and inconsistent terminology can complicate efforts to compare findings from different studies. In this article, we reiterate and clarify recommended terms for describing Golden Eagle ( Aquila chrysaetos ) territory occupancy and reproduction. Several authors have provided recommendations for reporting data on raptor reproduction, but our literature review showed that authors continue to use different, often ambiguous and undefined, terms. The inconsistent use of terminology by researchers has been continued and expanded by lawmakers, regulators, and managers, perpetuating confusion. We recommend that authors clearly define and reference all terminology that they use, and we caution against use of the term “active” to describe a nest or nesting territory, because it is tainted with a history of inconsistent use. We provide a glossary of recommended terms for Golden Eagles and other large, long-lived raptors.

Journal of Raptor Research↗

USGS2017

Patterns of spatial distribution of golden eagles across North America: How do they fit into existing landscape-scale mapping systems?

Conserving wide-ranging animals requires knowledge about their year-round movements and resource use. Golden Eagles ( Aquila chrysaetos ) exhibit a wide range of movement patterns across North America. We combined tracking data from 571 Golden Eagles from multiple independent satellite-telemetry projects from North America to provide a comprehensive look at the magnitude and extent of these movements on a continental scale. We compared patterns of use relative to four alternative administrative and ecological mapping systems, namely Bird Conservation Regions (BCRs), U.S. administrative migratory bird flyways, Migratory Bird Joint Ventures, and Landscape Conservation Cooperatives. Our analyses suggested that eagles initially captured in eastern North America used space differently than those captured in western North America. Other groups of eagles that exhibited distinct patterns in space use included long-distance migrants from northern latitudes, and southwestern and Californian desert residents. There were also several groupings of eagles in the Intermountain West. Using this collaborative approach, we have identified large-scale movement patterns that may not have been possible with individual studies. These results will support landscape-scale conservation measures for Golden Eagles across North America.

Journal of Raptor Research↗

USGS2011

An adaptive-management framework for optimal control of hiking near golden eagle nests in Denali National Park

Unintended effects of recreational activities in protected areas are of growing concern. We used an adaptive-management framework to develop guidelines for optimally managing hiking activities to maintain desired levels of territory occupancy and reproductive success of Golden Eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) in Denali National Park (Alaska, U.S.A.). The management decision was to restrict human access (hikers) to particular nesting territories to reduce disturbance. The management objective was to minimize restrictions on hikers while maintaining reproductive performance of eagles above some specified level. We based our decision analysis on predictive models of site occupancy of eagles developed using a combination of expert opinion and data collected from 93 eagle territories over 20 years. The best predictive model showed that restricting human access to eagle territories had little effect on occupancy dynamics. However, when considering important sources of uncertainty in the models, including environmental stochasticity, imperfect detection of hares on which eagles prey, and model uncertainty, restricting access of territories to hikers improved eagle reproduction substantially. An adaptive management framework such as ours may help reduce uncertainty of the effects of hiking activities on Golden Eagles

Alaska↗

USGS2009

Dynamic multistate site occupancy models to evaluate hypotheses relevant to conservation of Golden Eagles in Denali National Park, Alaska

The recent development of multistate site occupancy models offers great opportunities to frame and solve decision problems for conservation that can be viewed in terms of site occupancy. These models have several characteristics (e.g., they account for detectability) that make them particularly well suited for addressing management and conservation problems. We applied multistate site occupancy models to evaluate hypotheses related to the conservation and management of Golden Eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) in Denali National Park, Alaska, and provided estimates of transition probabilities among three occupancy states for nesting areas (occupied with successful reproduction, occupied with unsuccessful reproduction, and unoccupied). Our estimation models included the effect of potential recreational activities (hikers) and environmental covariates such as a snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus) index on transition probabilities among the three occupancy states. Based on the most parsimonious model, support for the hypothesis of an effect of potential human disturbance on site occupancy dynamics was equivocal. There was some evidence that potential human disturbance negatively affected local colonization of territories, but there was no evidence of an effect on reproductive performance parameters. In addition, models that assume a positive relationship between the hare index and successful reproduction were well supported by the data. The statistical approach that we used is particularly useful to parameterize management models that can then be used to make optimal decisions related to the management of Golden Eagles in Denali. Although in our case we were particularly interested in managing recreational activities, we believe that such models should be useful to for a broad class of management and conservation problems.

Alaska↗

USGS2009

Perturbation analysis for patch occupancy dynamics

Perturbation analysis is a powerful tool to study population and community dynamics. This article describes expressions for sensitivity metrics reflecting changes in equilibrium occupancy resulting from small changes in the vital rates of patch occupancy dynamics (i.e., probabilities of local patch colonization and extinction). We illustrate our approach with a case study of occupancy dynamics of Golden Eagle ( Aquila chrysaetos ) nesting territories. Examination of the hypothesis of system equilibrium suggests that the system satisfies equilibrium conditions. Estimates of vital rates obtained using patch occupancy models are used to estimate equilibrium patch occupancy of eagles. We then compute estimates of sensitivity metrics and discuss their implications for eagle population ecology and management. Finally, we discuss the intuition underlying our sensitivity metrics and then provide examples of ecological questions that can be addressed using perturbation analyses. For instance, the sensitivity metrics lead to predictions about the relative importance of local colonization and local extinction probabilities in influencing equilibrium occupancy for rare and common species.

Ecology↗