Western Golden Eagle Team, Conservation Planning

Goal: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service established the Western Golden Eagle Team (WGET) to develop landscape-scale conservation strategies to support management of Golden Eagles in the western U.S. WGET is developing conservation strategies at the scale of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation Level III Ecoregions that can be scaled up to Bird Conservation Regions and Flyways. Each ecoregional conservation strategy consists of two parts: a technical assessment of current information pertaining to Golden Eagles and a conservation strategy to support regional management of the species. The conservation assessment provides information resources, data, and predictive models to support eagle management, including ecoregion-specific modeling of Golden Eagle seasonal habitats (breeding, winter, and movement) and exposure to threats (e.g. electrocution). The conservation strategy is based on research and modeling results compiled in the assessment, and provides risk assessments, spatial prioritization modeling, and decision support tools for energy development, mitigation, and eagle conservation planning.