American peregrine falcon monitoring protocol for the Central Alaska Network: Protocol narrative, version 2.0

Ambrose, Skip; Guldager, Nikki; Daw, Sonya; Beer, Margaret; Flamme, Melanie; MacCluskie, Maggie; Schmidt, Joshua; Miller, Scott

The National Park Service (NPS) has developed a long-term ecological monitoring program known as “Vital Signs Monitoring” to provide the minimum infrastructure and enable more than 270 national park units, organized into 32 networks nationwide, to identify and implement long-term monitoring of their highest-priority indicators of natural resource condition. The Vital Signs Monitoring Program is a major component of the NPS strategy to improve park management through greater reliance on scientific information. This protocol details the justification and procedures for American Peregrine Falcon monitoring, a Vital Sign selected by the Central Alaska Network (CAKN) (MacCluskie and Oakley 2005). The CAKN includes three park units in interior Alaska: Denali National Park and Preserve (DENA), Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve (YUCH) and Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve (WRST) (Figure 1; MacCluskie and Oakley 2005). The CAKN adopted a holistic view of network ecosystems and tracks the major physical drivers of ecosystem change and responses of the two major components of the biota: plants and animals. Thus, CAKN has identified Fauna Distribution and Abundance as one of its top three Vital Signs. The CAKN seeks to learn how fauna are distributed across the landscape and to track changes in both distribution and abundance. The Fauna Distribution and Abundance Vital Sign comprises monitoring efforts for a suite of vertebrate species spanning the elevation gradient found in CAKN parks, and also includes species of specific interest within each park. Raptors, specifically American Peregrine Falcons (peregrines) in YUCH, have been identified as a vital sign within this context because they are top trophic level predators that are indicators of persistent bioaccumulative contaminants in ecosystems. Additionally, CAKN monitors Golden Eagles in DENA and Bald Eagles in WRST. The CAKN scoping workshop (2002) identified these raptors as important vital signs under Fauna Distribution and Abundance. American Peregrine Falcons (peregrines) along the upper Yukon River in YUCH have been monitored almost continuously since the listing of the species under the Endangered Species Act in 1973, after exposure to the contaminant, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), devastated populations. Additionally, this stretch of the river from the Alaska-Yukon Territory border to Circle, Alaska (Figure 1) was identified as an “index study area” for Alaska in the Peregrine Falcon Recovery Plan, Alaska Population (USFWS 1982), and more recently within the National Monitoring Plan for the American Peregrine Falcon (USFWS 2003); this index area is located almost entirely within YUCH. A standard monitoring protocol was developed by cooperating agencies; (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service [USFWS], NPS, Bureau of Land Management, and Alaska Department of Fish and Game) involved in writing the Peregrine Falcon Recovery Plan, Alaska Population (USFWS 1982); these protocols have been consistently used within and around YUCH since 1982.

American peregrine falcon monitoring protocol for the Central Alaska Network: Protocol narrative, version 2.0

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