Determining breeding habitat suitability for white-tailed eagle in northern Hokkaido, Japan

• Published in: Japanese Journal of Conservation Ecology Vol. 28; no. 2; p. 281
• Main Authors: Yabuhara, Yuki, Akasaka, Takumi, Yamada, Yoshiki, Hara, Hirofumi, Okuda, Atsushi, Kawaguchi, Yoichi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Japanese
• Published: The Ecological Society of Japan 15.04.2022
• Subjects: habitat suitability model; raptor; sensitivity map; spatial scale; wind farm
• DOI: 10.18960/hozen.2012
• ISSN: 1342-4327

The white-tailed eagle is susceptible to negative effects related to wind farms. Wind-farm locations must be carefully selected to avoid danger to these eagles and thus mitigate impacts. However, the distribution of this species at broad scales is poorly understood, which hinders such planning. We created a predictive model of the potential breeding area of white-tailed eagles in northern Hokkaido, Japan. Using Maxent, we constructed a spatial model using 43 nest locations and 6 environmental variables, then evaluated the model using 12 withheld nest locations. The distribution of breeding habitat was highly correlated with topographic factors at the local scale and with land-use types at the home-range scale, indicating that eagles select habitat at multiple spatial scales. Habitat suitability was higher in places with more moderate forest cover and mid-sized water bodies at the 2-km scale, with dense forest edges at the 3-km scale, and at lower elevations at the 0.1-km scale. Model performance was relatively high, implying that our suitability map could be used to create a sensitivity map. The habitat-suitability map shows areas of northern Hokkaido that are important breeding habitat for white-tailed eagle; we do not recommend wind-farm establishment in these places.