Habitat associations of birds of prey in urban business parks

Various species of raptors, or birds of prey, have been found living and hunting in all parts of the urban environment, including complexes of business and light industrial facilities, commonly known as business parks. Conservation in business parks is a growing concern due to the amount of land they occupy and their pattern of development of formerly vacant land on the fringes of urban areas. We conducted call-broadcast surveys for raptors at a set of 155 survey points within the business park landscape of the St. Louis area to answer the question of what landscape characteristics of business parks are predictors of presence of raptors. The detection data from these surveys was used to model the occupancy probability of the target species of raptor at each survey site and to determine the effect of landscape variables at each site on occupancy probabilities. We detected nine species of raptors at business parks. The red-tailed hawk (), the American kestrel (), and the Cooper’s hawk () were the most commonly detected species. The probability of raptor occupation was negatively associated with lawn cover. Occupancy probabilities of red-tailed hawks and Cooper’s hawks were positively associated with woodland cover, and American kestrel occupancy probability was positively associated with grassland cover. Based on this study, we would recommend that businesses concerned with the conservation of raptors in and around their properties plan to develop less lawn area, preserve or plant more native grassland, and preserve woodlots.