Counting Golden Eagles: teacher key

Golden Eagles, grade 11 edition, written for 11th grade. How a golden eagle hunts and flies, and how tags, surveys and estimates follow its numbers: what is known, what is limited and how the birds live.

Read the book. Print this page for the key.

Questions and answers

1. How long was the survey's data, which limits long-term trend judgments?
   • Forty years
   • One year
   • Four years (answer)
2. What does Partners in Flight estimate for the global breeding population?
   • 300,000 golden eagles (answer)
   • 3,000 golden eagles
   • 30 golden eagles
3. What did the study of western trends from 1968 to 2010 conclude?
   • Golden eagles had vanished
   • Golden eagles were not declining widely (answer)
   • Golden eagles had doubled
4. Which two risks to golden eagles are named?
   • Rain and snow
   • Power lines and habitat loss (answer)
   • Rabbits and hares
5. The survey has only four years of data. Why does that matter?
   • It limits how well researchers can judge long-term trends (answer)
   • It proves the numbers are perfect
   • It shows all eagles migrate
6. What does orographic soaring use?
   • Heat from a nest
   • Strong wingbeats only
   • Air pushed up by hills (answer)

Words

• telemetry: remote tracking
• orographic: hill-lifted
• subadults: young eagles
• eyries: eagle nests
• escarpments: steep slopes