Decision support tools to accelerate responsible development of renewable energy in the southeastern USA: golden eagles and wind energy we propose to use existing and new telemetry data to identify…

Decision support tools to accelerate responsible development of renewable energy in the southeastern USA: golden eagles and wind energy we propose to use existing and new telemetry data to identify distribution and relative abundance of golden eagles in the southeastern united states, then deliver decision-support tools to help accelerate responsible development of renewable energy in the region. Interactions between golden eagles and wind turbines slow responsible development of wind energy throughout the USA. Populations of golden eagles in eastern north america are small, poorly known, and a high conservation priority. Furthermore, although the southeastern USA currently does not support substantial wind energy development, rapid growth is expected in the near future. Much of this planned growth is in areas where golden eagles are thought to occur. As such, there is an important priority for development of decision support tools that can guide management decisions to reduce the threat of interactions between golden eagles and wind turbines throughout this region. This project will rely on analysis of two types of data. Our team has deployed global positioning system tracking (telemetry) devices on more than 120 golden eagles and deployed more than 250 camera traps throughout eastern north america. We will use both these data to identify geographic areas with known golden eagles but for which we have no global positioning system telemetry data. We will target those areas for trapping, aiming to deploy transmitters on an additional 5-10 birds in those areas. To map golden eagles empirical distribution, we will use a suite of data sources, including telemetry, ebird, camera trap, and other observation data. We will then create models of relative abundance that integrate global positioning system telemetry data and counts of eagles from camera traps. To identify region-specific flight altitudes, we will use altitude data obtained from the telemetry data to model variation in flight altitude as a response to region, weather, topography, and land cover. We will then identify areas where flight altitudes of eagles are expected to intersect with blades of current and future generations of wind turbines (about 50-250 meters above surface).three key products of this work will be maps of (1) distribution (2) relative abundance and (3) region-specific flight altitudes of golden eagles in the southeastern U.S. We will provide electronic files of these maps directly to the U.S. Fish wildlife service and make them available to the general public on our website. We will also incorporate them into scientific articles stemming from this work and that we will publish in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Finally, we also anticipate presenting the results of this work to U.S. Fish wildlife and regional biologists with one or more web-based presentations. This work will (a) identify steps to accelerate responsible development of renewable energy (a department of interior priority), (b) provide high quality science and decision support for programs and partners by providing peer-reviewed science (a science applications and migratory bird programs priority), and (c) provide decision support tools and fill knowledge gaps related to sustainability of birds (both southeast regional U.S. Fish wildlife priorities).