The population of Bald Eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) nesting in Louisiana reached precariously low numbers in the early 1970s, and although the population has since increased markedly, resident eagles remain a species of conservation concern in Louisiana. Using statewide aerial nest survey data from 19752008, I documented the history and quantified the recovery of the nesting population in Louisiana. Known active nests increased exponentially from 7 to 387 during this period, exhibiting a mean annual rate of increase of 11.1 ± 0.3% per year with no indications of slowing. By 1990, the nesting population in Louisiana had exceeded all goals of the Southeastern States Bald Eagle Recovery Plan. I used nest location and status data from the most recent year (20072008) of the nest monitoring program to examine landscape level nest site selection and success. Success of a nest was not greatly influenced by the physical characteristics around a site, whereas the initial selection of a nest site was most influenced by distance to the historical nest centroid and the proportion of open water and agricultural land within 3 km. Bald Eagles nest during the winter in Louisiana, but they are rarely observed in the state during summer. Therefore, I used satellite GPS transmitters to provide evidence of their undocumented summer migrations and examined parameters such as timing of departure and arrivals, stopover use, routes used, and seasonal and annual variations in these parameters. Marked eagles flew relatively direct routes, exhibiting high route fidelity going between Louisiana and their summering areas, which were spread out across much of Canada and south to Illinois. Using locations from their winter and summering areas, I estimated home range and core area size. Home ranges varied from 19.71,997.7 km2, but nesting Bald Eagles had smaller home ranges, on average, than did non-nesting birds. The sex of an individual can play an important role when considering variations in movements, home ranges, and habitat use. Accordingly, I evaluated the published field technique for sex determination of Bald Eagles, and upon documenting misclassifications, I developed a new formula applicable to Louisiana and other southern regions.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-06042014-223737 |
| Date | 16 June 2014 |
| Creators | Smith, Nickolas Ryan |
| Contributors | Afton, Alan D, Blouin, David C, Wang, Lei |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-06042014-223737/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached herein a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below and in appropriate University policies, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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