FUTURE WORK

· Conduct analyses on the remaining 50 routes with appropriate owl habitat.

I will use ModelBuilder to create a model to perform geospatial analyses on each of the route locations in NM where owls have been recorded.

· Conduct analyses again with a smaller buffer.

It is unlikely owls travel 4km often while they are on their breeding grounds. I will conduct analyses again using a 1.5km buffer for a comparison of habitat characteristics within the range of the majority of Burrowing Owls’ movement.

· Conduct my own analyses of trends.

BBS analyses are generated from complex statistics; a necessity to standardize results derived over such a large scale, for varied taxa, produced from many different observers, and during different weather conditions. Therefore they follow a rigorous protocol and remove data that is collected outside of their standards. Due to the habitat, behavior, and unique physical characteristics of Burrowing Owls, they are easier to find and identify than many bird species. Records of owls have been removed from BBS analyses because they fell outside of some aspect of data collection standard, and I would like to analyze all raw data with a simple trend analysis and examine these results using GIS.

· Determine if positive trends are driven by large increases in a limited number of routes.

In a California study, authors determined the significant state-wide increases reported in BBS data were driven entirely by three routes in irrigated agriculture along the California / Mexico border where there were large increases in Burrowing Owl numbers. In contrast, the authors’ intensive state-wide survey produced the conflicting results that Burrowing Owls were generally declining in the state (DeSante et al. 1996). I will examine data to investigate if positive state-wide trends are unduly influenced by large regional increases.

· Pool raw data to examine trends.

I will combine the annual owl records by region of NM, by Bird Conservation Region, and by physiographic stratum to examine trends in mean owls per route at a larger scale.