Washburn Brian E, Massey Benjamin J, Sonnek Alec C, Pitlik Todd J
United States Department of Agriculture, Animal Plant Health Inspection Service, Wildlife Services, National Wildlife Research Center, Fort Collins, CO, USA.
United States Department of Agriculture, Animal Plant Health Inspection Service, Wildlife Services, Fort Collins, CO, USA.
Environ Manage. 2025 Mar;75(3):654-662. doi: 10.1007/s00267-025-02114-4. Epub 2025 Jan 11.
The great horned owl (Bubo virginianus) is a generalist predator that inhabits wide-ranging territories that are relatively stable throughout the year. These owls are also involved in a variety of human-owl conflicts, including killing of domestic poultry, predating colonially nesting seabirds and shorebirds, and pose a hazard to safe aircraft operations. Managing these conflict situations presents unique challenges as great horned owls are nocturnally active and occupy a wide range of habitats. We evaluated information about great horned owl collisions with civilian aircraft and found this is a contemporary and growing aviation safety issue. We conducted a study to determine whether a biological (e.g., age of the bird) and logistical factors (e.g., month and translocation distance) influenced the return rate of great horned owls following a mitigation translocation from 13 civil airports and three military airfields during 2013-2023. Great horned owls (n = 1,020) were live-captured, banded, and translocated various distances from the airfields which were then monitored for returning owls. We developed a set of candidate binomial-distributed generalized linear models [involving all possible subsets of three factors (age, month, and distance translocated) as well as interactions]. The return rate of translocated great horned owls was very low (i.e., 2.6%) and we found no evidence that these biological and logistical factors influenced great horned owl homing behavior. Management programs that use release sites 40 km from the conflict location and translocate individual owls only once would increase program efficacy by minimizing homing behavior and decreasing implementation costs.
大角鸮（Bubo virginianus）是一种广食性捕食者，栖息于全年相对稳定的广阔领地。这些猫头鹰还卷入了各种人与猫头鹰的冲突，包括捕杀家禽、捕食群居筑巢的海鸟和滨鸟，以及对飞机安全运行构成危害。由于大角鸮夜间活动且占据广泛的栖息地，管理这些冲突情况带来了独特的挑战。我们评估了有关大角鸮与民用飞机碰撞的信息，发现这是一个当代且日益严重的航空安全问题。我们进行了一项研究，以确定生物因素（如鸟类年龄）和后勤因素（如月份和转移距离）是否会影响2013年至2023年期间从13个民用机场和3个军事机场进行缓解性转移后的大角鸮返回率。大角鸮（n = 1020）被活捉、佩戴脚环，并从机场转移到不同距离处，然后对返回的猫头鹰进行监测。我们开发了一组候选的二项分布广义线性模型[涉及三个因素（年龄、月份和转移距离）的所有可能子集以及相互作用]。转移后的大角鸮返回率非常低（即2.6%），我们没有发现证据表明这些生物和后勤因素会影响大角鸮的归巢行为。使用距离冲突地点40公里的放生地点且仅转移一次个体猫头鹰的管理计划，将通过最小化归巢行为和降低实施成本来提高计划效率。
