Monitoring Golden Eagle nestling diets across western Utah

Diet is a factor in everything from nutrition, to mental and physiological development, to reproductive capabilities, and ultimately individual survival. Ingestion is a major course of contamination from pathogens and trace elements in wildlife. I am interested in tracking Golden Eagle nestling diet composition both spatially and temporally to understand potential differences in exposure to parasites, contaminants, and disease.

There are two methods of monitoring diet in raptor research. 1) Passive monitoring is done by observing the nest and counting prey remains (the remnants of what’s been eaten). 2) Active monitoring is done by recording prey deliveries using cameras to capture what the adults bring to the nest. Both have pros and cons but the cameras, in general, capture more prey items than the passive monitoring technique. One of the downsides is the massive volume of photos we sometimes will have to sift through all sorts of other ‘data’ to capture the particular pieces we are interested in.

I’m always looking for folks to help with photo review and to categorize photos! Please feel free to reach out if you’re interested.