Meet the Peregrine Falcon Expert
Skip Ambrose
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Dear Students,
My name is Skip Ambrose. I live in Fairbanks, Alaska, and I work for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Most of my work involves research on peregrine falcons, and my latest project has been to try to determine where these birds migrate and where they spend the winter. Bird migration has always fascinated people, yet we actually understand very little about how birds migrate. I will be working with you as we track the migration of peregrine falcons from their wintering areas in Latin America back to Alaska.
I have been studying peregrine falcons in Alaska for over 20 years. In the mid-1970s, there were very few peregrine falcons in North America. The pesticide DDT, which farmers used to control pest insects, caused peregrine falcons, bald eagles, and other birds to lay eggs with very thin shells, so thin in fact that the eggs usually did not hatch. As a result of no eggs hatching, the populations of these birds began declining. Finally, when the U.S. government realized what was happening, they banned the use of DDT. When they did this, birds began to reproduce normally and their numbers began to increase.
Peregrine falcons in Alaska have been increasing steadily for the past 20 years, and they may soon be taken off the endangered species list. However, before we do that, we want to find out what other threats these birds face. One of the most important, of course, is where they spend the winter and what might be occurring there that could harm the birds (for example, loss of the rain forest in South America, or use of DDT in other countries).
We have tried to learn their wintering areas by banding young falcons, and we banded about 3,000 peregrine falcons in Alaska during the past 15 years, but we never got much information about winter locations from these banded birds. Our current study is a way to learn about migration and wintering areas using new satellite technology.
Most of you are familiar with radio telemetry studies where researchers attach tiny radio transmitters to birds or mammals, and follow those animals with radio receivers to learn where the animals travel or hunt or raise their young. Just a few years ago, companies began to develop small radios that transmit signals to satellites circling the earth, which then could send location information to researchers. We have started such a study with peregrine falcons in Alaska.
We trapped 14 falcons in Alaska last summer (1995) and fitted each bird with a small (28 gram or 1 oz.) satellite radio transmitter. We attached the transmitters with backpack harnesses, which fit on a bird much like a small day pack you might carry, except the transmitters are extremely small.
The falcons migrated out of Alaska in early September, about the time fall (or early winter) starts in Alaska. You've discovered where they're spending the winter. We will be working with you to tracking the spring migration of these birds beginning any day now!
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