Is road construction good for peregrine falcons?
That’s a question asked by Hank Timm, who works for the Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge in Tok. Since 1995, Timm has watched five pairs of peregrine falcons that have nested on manmade cliffs (three on road cuts, two on rock quarries). He found that those five nests, including one at a rock quarry used as a rifle range, have produced more baby peregrine falcons than natural cliff sites along the Tanana River. “We hypothesize that the energetic costs of frequent human disturbances at the roadside territories may be offset by abundant prey nearby and the ability of the birds to habituate to highway traffic,” Timm wrote.
