DOI: 10.5061/dryad.np5hqc01p
title: Data from: “Dead birds flying”: Can North American rehabilitated raptors released into the wild mitigate anthropogenic mortality?

description: As the human footprint expands to meet societal energy needs, so do the
 impacts on wildlife. Raptors in particular are highly susceptible to
 anthropogenic caused mortality. Industry sectors are encouraged to offset
 these causes of mortality. Several options to mitigate these losses have
 been proposed, including raptor rehabilitation. However, its role as a
 conservation tool is untested. Currently, no peer-reviewed demographic
 analyses exist using post-release data from rehabilitated raptors to
 evaluate its effectiveness at continental scales. Our objectives were to
 estimate annual survival of rehabilitated and wild raptors, and then use
 those estimates in demographic models to assess potential effects at
 individual and population levels. We hypothesized that rehabilitated
 raptors would survive similarly to their wild counterparts after an
 acclimation period, and that longer-lived species (K-selected) would
 benefit most from these releases. We used U.S. Geological Survey Bird
 Banding Lab band-recovery data (1974 – 2018) from 20 raptor species for
 modeling survival of rehabilitated individuals (n = 125,740) in comparison
 to wild birds (n = 1,913,352). Results from 17 species with adequate
 recovery data indicated that 5 species rehabilitated ≠ wild survival, 2
 species had uncertain estimates, and 10 species rehabilitated ≈ wild
 survival by years 2 and 3 post-release. We acquired admission (n = 69,707)
 and release (n = 25,740) data from 24 rehabilitation centers across the
 U.S. (2012-2021). We integrated survival, fecundity, and numbers of
 releases into demographic models. These models quantified the extent to
 which rehabilitated raptors may contribute to broader conservation
 efforts, especially in the context of individual take. All but two species
 had measurable numbers of individuals added to the population regardless
 of the number of releases. The general pattern was for K-selected species
 to yield larger benefits from rehabilitated supplementation to the
 population. These results provide evidence that rehabilitation may serve
 as a mitigation tool to offset incidental take.
description: # “Dead birds flying”: Can North American rehabilitated raptors released
 into the wild mitigate anthropogenic mortality?
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.np5hqc01p](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.np5hqc01p) Provided are the m-arrrays used to estimate survival of 17 North American raptor species from 1974-2018. Age classes were amalgamated into First year (FY) and after First year (AFY). See article for details. These files are designed to run the analyses on each species individually and are identified as such, where there are 4 "recovery matrix groups" indicated for each species. This formatting is the requirement of Program MARK. To run an individual species the user will need to copy and paste the 4 m-arrays into a new file and run it from there. ## Description of the data and file structure These m-arrays are formatted to run in the mark-recovery models in Program MARK (or R-mark). They can be run through either the Seber parametrization (preferred as these species are not hunted) or the Brownie Parameterization, which typically is used for harvested populations. ## Sharing/Access information Raw data acquired from USGS BBL that was then formatted to the m-arrays provided here on Dryad * [https://www.usgs.gov/labs/bird-banding-laboratory](https://www.usgs.gov/labs/bird-banding-laboratory) ## Code/Software Survival models were run in Program MARK, code for simulations is available upon request.