Robert Saffioti
Melvin Escobar
Tony Liang
Arslan Habib
We chose to focus on hawks and falcons in New York City because of our previous interest in birds of prey (or raptors) as a whole, not to mention their importance as an apex predator to an ecosystem’s biodiversity. It’s also due to them being apex predators that it’s incredible how they have been able to survive in urban environments.
We wanted to see what the primary eco-geographical characteristics of Central Park, Prospect Park, and Bronx Park were (i.e: park elevation, human attraction, density of foliage, etc.), and to what extent those characteristics allow for great survivability for hawks and falcons.
We observed and analyzed each park by visiting them and analyzing them based on their eco-geographical characteristics for at least 2 hours, as well as comparing and measuring the sightings of hawks and falcons in each park that were recorded on iNaturalist.
We want people to take away the fact that there are many qualities and possibilities to consider the survival of an animal in a given environment. Even though we predicted Prospect Park to yield the greatest number of raptors due to its geography and minimal human attraction in certain parts of the park. However, Central Park yielded the greatest numbers despite its low amount of foliage and high human attraction.
