Title: demonstrating technologies to monitor sublethal responses of eagles to military activities ondepartment of defense installations RWO 221PERIOD of performance: 05 20 2025 - 03 31 2026SUMMARY:…

Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University (Virginia Tech) received a $104,107.55 Cooperative Agreement award from the U.S. Geological Survey under the Cooperative Research Units Program (CFDA 15.812) to demonstrate and validate technologies for monitoring sublethal stress responses in bald and golden eagles on Department of Defense (DoD) installations. The project, effective May 20, 2025 through March 31, 2026, will develop and implement field-validated approaches to assess lead contamination and physiological stress indicators in eagle populations using feather and blood tissue analysis. Virginia Tech will evaluate how military training activities, recreational hunting, and environmental factors individually and collectively contribute to raptor stress, with findings directly informing DoD natural resource managers on identifying installations at risk and implementing appropriate mitigation strategies.

The primary deliverables include demonstrative tools and protocols for evaluating toxicant exposure and stress biomarkers in raptor populations; documented linkages between military activities and hunting as stressor sources and corresponding physiological responses; technical guidance documents for DoD personnel and environmental chemistry laboratories; and a predictive risk assessment tool to identify installations where eagles may experience negative impacts from sublethal stressors. This applied research initiative supports the Cooperative Research Units Program's mission to address information needs of federal and state fish and wildlife agencies through collaborative research and will contribute to evidence-based wildlife management on military installations.

Title: demonstrating technologies to monitor sublethal responses of eagles to military activities ondepartment of defense installations RWO 221PERIOD of performance: 05 20 2025 - 03 31 2026SUMMARY: this project will demonstrate and validate an approach to assess the role of lead and disturbance as stressors on bald (haliaeetus leucocephalus) and golden eagles (aquila chrysaetos) on military installations. This approach uses feathers and blood collected at nests, assays to screen those tissues for lead, stress hormones, and enzymes related to lead contamination, all evaluated relative to military training and testing activities, recreational hunting, and landscape characteristics. This research will allow managers to assess sublethal take of these protected species and to provide mitigative strategies to minimize impacts thereof. The recipient will evaluate these factors singularly and in combination using informative models to show how they contribute to potential deleterious stress to raptors, thus allowing installations to assess risk and develop appropriate mitigation strategies. Activities to be performed - objectives are to 1) demonstrate tools and approaches to evaluate toxicant exposure, stress levels, and stress response of raptors at and near military installations throughout the united states 2) identify linkages among stressors (military activity, recreational hunting as a toxicant exposure source) and indicators of physiological stress hormones and enzymatic stress response 3) provide guidance documents for DOD natural resources staff and environmental chemistry laboratories to collect and analyze data to evaluate indirect and sublethal effects of activities on military installations to wildlife and 4) demonstrate the use of a predictive tool to identify installations with potential for raptors to be negatively impacted by sub-lethal stressors deliverables and expected outcomes -recipient will provide the DOD with an estimate of the numbers of eagles potentially exposed to chronic to lethal levels of lead that in turn will provide installation managers with data to inform decisions on moving to non-lead ammunition for recreational hunting on installations for fuller compliance with the bald and golden eagle protection act. Recipient will provide managers from federal and state resource agencies guidance on relating lead concentrations in eagle feathers with stress hormone levels that are calibrated to exposure outcomes (no effect, chronic or lethal). Intended beneficiary(IES) the department of defense, the U.S. Fish and wildlife service, state wildlife agencies of new mexico, utah and idaho and energy production companies. Subrecipient activities, if known or specified at the time of award the peregrine fund is a subrecipient of this award and they will assist the virginia unit in the identification of eagle scavenging rates on hunter-kill GUT piles as well as collect feathers for lead and hormone analyses.