Restoring Aplomado Falcons to the United States

Abstract

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The Effect of Supplemental Feeding on the Known Survival of Reintroduced Aplomado Falcons: Implications for Recovery

“…Given the naïveté of the released birds, those who ceased to attend feedings, and were not found via other monitoring methods, were assumed to be dead. This assumption was consistent with The Peregrine Fund's conclusion that "excessive mortality is implicit, however, in the current lack of a breeding population and in the overall rarity with which the species is seen and reported" (Hunt et al 2013). However, it is possible that these birds persisted in unknown locations.…”

“…The Peregrine Fund employed standard raptor hacking (reintroduction) procedures for releasing 102 captive-bred Aplomado Falcons at the Armendaris Ranch from 2006 through 2011 in June, July, and August (Hunt et al 2013). This procedure involved holding juvenile aplomados, with color VID (visual identification) and aluminum U.S.G.S.…”

“…Unfortunately, we were unable to differentiate between likely mortality and actual mortality because no birds were radio-tagged until 2011. In 2011, 10 aplomados released at the Armendaris were equipped with VHF radio transmitters to document movements and mortality as part of a larger study by The Peregrine Fund (Hunt et al 2013).…”

“…1990). To satisfy this criterion, releases of captiveraised juvenile aplomados were conducted in areas of historical occurrence (Hunt et al 2013). The broad food habits and resourceful nature of the Aplomado Falcon suggested that food would not be a limiting factor and it was assumed that suitable habitat still existed.…”

Successful enhancement of Ridgway's Hawk populations through recruitment of translocated birds

“…'Soft releases' are often assumed to increase the initial survival of translocated animals (Kleiman 1989, Bright andMorris 1994), but some experiments have questioned this assumption (Armstrong and Seddon 2008). The hacking method that we used has been effective for the establishment of other populations of translocated raptors (e.g., Cade et al 1988, Cade and Jones 1993, Jones et al 1995, Hunt et al 2013, although the survival of hacked raptors can be lower than that of wild-FIGURE 1. Derived differences of rates of survival, recruitment, and detection based on sex or translocation status (either translocated from Los Haitises National Park to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, or remaining in the national park) for Ridgway 's Hawks, 2009's Hawks, -2016.…”