Abstract
Assessing impacts of wind farms on volant animals requires conducting fatality monitoring studies that incorporate integrated carcass detection trials to account for searcher detection probability and carcass persistence and to reduce biases in the estimated number of fatalities (Smallwood et al. 2018). These trials involve placing a wide range of volant animal carcasses that mimic the expected species composition and actual spatial and temporal patterns of fatalities deposited by the wind turbines and measuring rates of carcass detection(Smallwood et al. 2018). When combined with remote cameras, carcass placement trials can reveal the suite of local scavengers that affect carcass persistence. We report here on an incident of conspecific carcass removal by a Great Horned Owl (Budo virginianus) documented during a study designed to assess scavenger removal rates of avian carcasses at a wind energy project (Smallwood et al. 2009, 2010).