The future of banding in raptor science

Abstract

The future of conventional banding in raptor science depends upon the types of questions asked by scientists working in the field, and the extent to which banders and researchers continue their trapping and banding efforts. Traditionally, banding data have played two important roles in raptor science: assessing demographic statistics, including age at first breeding, survival rates, and mortality factors; and tracking movements of raptors, including migration, nomadic movements, and both natal and breeding dispersal. Recent decades have seen an explosive development and use of newer techniques to document the movements of raptors, including color leg-bands, wing-tags, conventional VHF tracking units, satellite-based UHF units, GPS-GSM units, and geolocating data loggers. All of these techniques have greatly facilitated our ability to track the movements of individual birds, broadening the field of movement ecology considerably, and shifting its emphasis from traditional population studies of migration toward detailed investigations of the ecology and geography of individual birds. Although conventional banding no longer plays as large a role in the study of raptor movements as it once did, its continued use can significantly complement the newer tools in use today, and can enhance our ability to understand the demographics and movements of raptors. For example, given banding's multi-decadal history, one potential use of banding data is in the assessment of the long-term effects of environmental changes, including climate, land-use, and contaminant changes, on both raptor demographics and movements. We believe that conventional banding remains an essential tool, for both the population biologist and the ecologist studying raptor movements, and that its usefulness in the field continues. We recommend that the emphasis of banding shift from short-term independent projects aimed at documenting movement patterns toward collaborative long-term efforts designed to provide insights into the factors influencing population responses to changing environments. © 2012 The Raptor Research Foundation, Inc.