Bald Eagle Surveys on the Coast of Kenai Fjords National Park, 1986 to 1996

Tetreau, Michael

Data from the 1995 and 1992 activity surveys were examined and an actual disposition was determined for each nest. This determination was made from a combination of field notes and results of the productivity survey. For example, a nest that had chicks in it during the productivity survey had to have been active during the activity survey. The data set was then narrowed down to only those nests that were found from both the ground and the air. Nests that were only found from either the ground or the air were eliminated from the analysis because there was no verification of the results by a second survey. In addition, nests for which no final disposition could accurately be determined were eliminated, as were nests for which there was a discrepancy in nest status coupled with a significant discrepancy in observation date. An example of this would be a nest that was found to be active during an aerial survey on May 19 and empty during a ground survey on June 16. It is highly possible that the nest could have failed during this time period, especially considering the high failure rate in 1995, and thus both observations would have been correct. The aerial and ground survey results were then compared to the actual disposition of the nest in a simple matrix analysis (Table 3).