Data from: “Dead birds flying”: Can North American rehabilitated raptors released into the wild mitigate anthropogenic mortality?

As the human footprint expands to meet societal energy needs, so do the
impacts on wildlife. Raptors in particular are highly susceptible to
anthropogenic caused mortality. Industry sectors are encouraged to offset
these causes of mortality. Several options to mitigate these losses have
been proposed, including raptor rehabilitation. However, its role as a
conservation tool is untested. Currently, no peer-reviewed demographic
analyses exist using post-release data from rehabilitated raptors to
evaluate its effectiveness at continental scales. Our objectives were to
estimate annual survival of rehabilitated and wild raptors, and then use
those estimates in demographic models to assess potential effects at
individual and population levels. We hypothesized that rehabilitated
raptors would survive similarly to their wild counterparts after an
acclimation period, and that longer-lived species (K-selected) would
benefit most from these releases. We used U.S. Geological Survey Bird
Banding Lab band-recovery data (1974 – 2018) from 20 raptor species for
modeling survival of rehabilitated individuals (n = 125,740) in comparison
to wild birds (n = 1,913,352). Results from 17 species with adequate
recovery data indicated that 5 species rehabilitated ≠ wild survival, 2
species had uncertain estimates, and 10 species rehabilitated ≈ wild
survival by years 2 and 3 post-release. We acquired admission (n = 69,707)
and release (n = 25,740) data from 24 rehabilitation centers across the
U.S. (2012-2021). We integrated survival, fecundity, and numbers of
releases into demographic models. These models quantified the extent to
which rehabilitated raptors may contribute to broader conservation
efforts, especially in the context of individual take. All but two species
had measurable numbers of individuals added to the population regardless
of the number of releases. The general pattern was for K-selected species
to yield larger benefits from rehabilitated supplementation to the
population. These results provide evidence that rehabilitation may serve
as a mitigation tool to offset incidental take.

随着人类活动足迹不断扩张以满足社会能源需求，其对野生动物的影响亦同步加剧。猛禽（Raptors）尤其极易受人为活动引发的死亡事件影响。各行业被鼓励采取措施抵消这类死亡诱因，目前已提出多种缓解此类损失的方案，其中包括猛禽康复救助（raptor rehabilitation），但该手段作为保护工具的有效性尚未得到验证。当前尚无基于康复猛禽放归后数据的同行评议种群统计分析，用以在大陆尺度上评估该救助手段的有效性。本研究旨在估算康复猛禽与野生猛禽的年存活率，并将这些估算值代入种群统计模型，以评估其在个体与种群层面的潜在影响。我们提出如下假设：在经过一段适应期后，康复猛禽的存活率将与野生同类相近；且寿命更长的K-选择（K-selected）物种将从此类放归项目中获益最多。本研究使用了美国地质调查局鸟类环志实验室（U.S. Geological Survey Bird Banding Lab）1974年至2018年间的20种猛禽的环志回收数据，以建模对比康复个体（样本量n=125740）与野生鸟类（样本量n=1913352）的存活率。针对17种拥有充足回收数据的物种的分析结果显示：在放归后第2至第3年，5个物种的康复个体存活率与野生同类存在显著差异，2个物种的估算结果存在不确定性，另有10个物种的康复个体存活率与野生同类近似。我们收集了美国境内24家猛禽康复中心2012年至2021年间的接收（n=69707）与放归（n=25740）数据。我们将存活率、繁殖力与放归个体数量整合至种群统计模型中，此类模型量化了康复猛禽可为更广泛的保护工作贡献的程度，尤其在个体误捕的场景下。除两个物种外，无论放归数量多少，其余所有物种均可通过康复救助向种群中增添可量化的个体数量。整体规律表现为：K-选择物种通过康复补充种群的方式可获得更大的收益。本研究结果证实，猛禽康复救助可作为抵消附带误捕影响的缓解工具。