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Impacts Of Wind Energy Development On Breeding Buteo Hawks In The Columbia Plateau Ecoregion, Patrick Shea Kolar

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Post-construction raptor fatality and nest monitoring is typically conducted at wind energy projects nationwide. However, pre- and post-construction surveys may fail to locate all breeding pairs and most studies at individual wind projects lack the necessary sample size or survey design to assess the effects of turbines on nesting raptors after construction. To address these potential issues, I used an information-theoretic approach to examine the influence of multiple spatial and temporal variables on reproductive success, post-fledging survival, and the distribution of breeding pairs from three sympatric Buteo species in the Columbia Plateau Ecoregion (CPE). Although the probability of detecting breeding …