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Low, gray clouds threaten rain – or maybe snow – over Cedar City as Danielle Finlayson steers a Division of Wildlife Resources (DWR) pickup truck to the start of the raptor survey loop she’s been following twice a month all winter.

Finlayson is the conservation species biologist for the Utah DWR’s Southern region, and she’s collecting the last round of data for the season on the Cedar Valley Route, which has been surveyed for three decades.

We’ve only been on the road a few minutes when Finlayson’s sharp eye spots a bird, what looks like a white ball of fluff perched on a powerline. She confidently identifies it as a kestrel, noting its position and size (roughly between that of a robin and a crow). Kestrels are known for seeking prey from perches on powerlines, she tells me. Another giveaway is that kestrels often bob their tails up and down. This one isn’t, but a look through binoculars reveals the bird’s characteristic rust tones and speckles, and the slate-gray areas on its head and wings; Finlayson can tell it’s a male.

She pulls out a silver clipboard with a data sheet to record the observation. Later she’ll enter the information into a database, gradually adding to the body of observations that have been collected using the same protocols for many years.

Monitoring data helps DWR understand the habits and health of wildlife in the state, which in turn informs the Utah Wildlife Action Plan, a guide for managing species that need conservation attention. The current version of the action plan was adopted in 2015, and it is being updated now.

We spot a large bird with a band of white on its tail. Finlayson identifies it right away as a ferruginous hawk, the largest of the North American Buteo hawks. An identifying characteristic is its large “gape” – the corners of its mouth stretch to behind its eyes.

Last year, Finlayson found a ferruginous hawk nest on a platform next to a set of railway tracks, with a ladder conveniently leading to it. She placed numbered bands on the chicks as quickly and gently as possible. These identifying tags allow biologists to track birds’ movements, behaviors and life cycles.

The populations of raptor species seen on the Cedar Valley survey route are generally healthy, and so not a high monitoring priority for DWR, but the information gathered is still valuable. Finlayson continues to survey the loop to maintain the continuity of the data. And it’s fun. She’s seen as many as 70 raptors on this route.

Finlayson has been in her position for about a year, and she loves it. Early in college, she tried different majors until she landed on wildlife biology. She remembers thinking, yup, this is where I belong.

She completed a master’s degree at Brigham Young University, where part of her final project focused on golden eagles. By analyzing images from cameras placed around springs in the West Desert, Finlayson observed that golden eagles use those water sources for drinking and bathing – refuting a common idea that the species meets all of its water needs through its prey.



Dixie Lee photography

Golden eagles are a favorite of Finlayson’s. Not only did she study them for her graduate program, but she admires their hunting skill and fighting spirit. She’s seen video of a golden eagle, with a wingspan of about 6 feet, attacking a California condor, with a wingspan as long as 10 feet. 

Finlayson is so familiar with the survey route that she expects to find certain species in specific trees. She pulls over to scan a cottonwood in the distance, looking for her favorite bird.

“Usually this is the one spot on the survey I’ll get goldens,” she said. Through a spotting scope she can identify a hulking bird in the tree’s branches. 

“One of the reasons I know he’s a golden is they have really beautiful golden feathers on the nape of the neck,” she explained, describing a detail perceptible through the powerful scope. It also has a smaller, daintier bill than a bald eagle, she said.

Elsewhere on the route, Finlayson spots a raptor over a field, and she can tell by its size and the slow flapping of its wings that it’s a bald eagle, even though it’s a juvenile and does not yet have its distinctive white head and tail.

“He was so dark – that’s probably a first year,” Finlayson said. Bald eagles, she explains, take five years to mature, and their white pattern gradually appears over that time. They can live for up to 30 years.

Bald eagles have a conservation comeback story. They were considered endangered in the lower 48 states as early as the 1960s. In the 1970s, the Environmental Protection Agency banned the use of DDT, a pesticide that was effective in controlling mosquitoes and other pests but washed into waterways and was absorbed by fish. Bald eagles that ate those fish developed health problems that caused them to produce weak shells that reduced the success rate of eagle chicks.

By the 1990s, the species had recovered enough that it was moved from the endangered to the threatened list; in 2007, it was delisted completely.

Other birds continue to face threats to their survival. California condors, the largest land birds in North America, were nearly extinct in the 1980s. Conservationists increased their numbers through captive breeding efforts, and birds were released back into the wild in the 1990s and 2000s. Now there are 300 wild California condors in the United States, with some living in southwest Utah.

California condor recovery has slowed because of lead poisoning. Lead bullets  used by hunters fragment upon impact. When a game animal is harvested, some of the fragments remain in the discarded waste. Scavenging wildlife then inadvertently consume the lead. California condors are exclusively scavengers, and therefore are highly vulnerable to lead poisoning.

“Even this year, we’ve had quite a few lead deaths,” Finlayson said.

DWR encourages hunters to use non-lead ammunition, especially if hunting in the Zion unit, where California condors are known to live. Finlayson heads the non-lead ammunition initiative, through which DWR offers hunters vouchers to purchase non-lead ammo.



Utah Division of Wildlife Resources


A hunter herself, Finlayson is familiar with the reasons some have been reluctant to make the shift to non-lead ammunition. Many believe non-lead ballistics are inferior, but Finlayson says technology has improved to the degree that she finds non-lead bullets perform as well or better than lead.

“I know a lot of people now who use it not because of environmental reasons, but because they prefer the ballistics,” she said.

She also acknowledges that some hunters just have a large stockpile of lead ammunition, and they don’t want it to go to waste. Hunters who want to use lead ammunition can still protect raptors by packing out the gut piles from the animals they harvest. If they can show the DWR that they’ve done so, or that they’re hunting with non-lead ammo, they can enter to win a raffle prize.

We finished the roughly 35-mile route in about two hours and saw a total of 13 raptors of six different species – not a lot, compared to what Finlayson sees in midwinter, but enough to make the journey rewarding.

We saw harrier and red-tailed hawks, in addition to ferruginous hawks, golden and bald eagles and kestrels. The second kestrel lifted off from its perch and flew a distance, then came to a hover in midair, flapping its wings but remaining stationary.

“I could just watch them do that all day,” Finlayson said.

Watching wildlife helps Finlayson understand the health of the ecosystem, but it can also be a simple delight.


Lydia Ripplinger