<\/a>Peregrine falcon nestlings on ledges above the upper Yukon River. (Photo by Skip Ambrose)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
Ambrose and Florian think the avian bird flu is probably killing adult peregrine falcons, maybe before they get to Alaska. Peregrines, which live an average of six-to-seven years, migrate from the breeding grounds of the far north to the southern United States, Central and South America.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
While they have found no dead birds to test for avian flu, Ambrose and Florian think the disease’s prevalence all over the continent makes sense as a reason for the birds’ decline.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Because peregrines capture and eat birds — from warblers to large ducks — they are quite susceptible to contracting bird flu, Ambrose said. The current strain of bird flu often kills birds within 48 hours of them contracting it (much like how the 1918 flu pandemic affected people).<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
With his single data point of lost peregrine falcons on the upper Yukon River, Ambrose is hoping to find out more from researchers who are monitoring them elsewhere, such as Padre Island in Texas where peregrines often hunt on their migrations to and from South America.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“We’re trying to get the word out, to see if people are noticing the same thing in other places,” Ambrose said. “Unfortunately, after the peregrine was (removed from the Endangered Species List) in the 1990s, most survey efforts in North America ended or were reduced substantially.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
What does the future hold for peregrine falcons, just a few years ago considered a great comeback success story?<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“We have no idea,” Ambrose said. “In truth, nobody really knows.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
• Since the late 1970s, the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Geophysical Institute has provided this column free in cooperation with the UAF research community. Ned Rozell is a science writer for the Geophysical Institute.<\/em><\/p>\n\t\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Numbers of adult peregrine falcons on the upper Yukon River in Alaska have decreased by more than a third in the last three years, according to a scientist who has counted them there for half a century.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":101697,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":11,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,6],"tags":[682],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-101696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home2","category-sports","tag-outdoors-and-recreation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101696"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=101696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}