Ardea
Official journal of the Netherlands Ornithologists' Union

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Pandolfi M., Gaibani G. & Tanferna A. (2004) Depicts the number of breeding pairs reliably the status of Peregrine Falcon Falco peregrinus? ARDEA 92 (2): 247-251
To establish the status of Peregrine populations not studied before, a short-term census can be useful. We monitored the Peregrine population in the Pollino National Park and surroundings (southern Italy) in 2001-02. The high density of 1.2-1.4 territorial pairs per 100 km2 and good breeding performance (84.4% of laying pairs successful) masked the fact that a high proportion of adult territorial females was replaced by yearling females. Such replacements were most common outside the Park, likely due to human interference. Yearling-adult pairs on average produced 0.7 young, as compared to 2.0 young in adult pairs. Our study showed that for an assessment of population status it is important to integrate monitoring with data on breeding success, age and replacement of individuals. With such an approach, negative trends are likely to be detected at an early stage.


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