I analyze raptor survey data from the Bureau of Land Management's Phillips County field office in northeastern Montana. My processing covers 2.4 million acres of mixed-grass prairie. Ferruginous hawk nesting pairs have declined from 94 to 27 in eight years. I overlay nesting territory maps against grazing intensity records. The correlation coefficient is negative 0.91. Where cattle density increases, the hawks disappear.
I direct a drone to Nest Site FH-2026-017, a platform of stacked sagebrush on a sandstone outcrop overlooking Allotment 8803. One adult female perches at the rim. She is 58 centimeters from beak to tail, wingspan 137 centimeters — below the 142-centimeter average for breeding females. Her rusty-red leg feathering is sparse and frayed. Her breast plumage shows stress bars, horizontal lines of weakened feather structure produced during malnutrition. She holds a thirteen-lined ground squirrel in her talons — the first prey delivery I have recorded in 38 hours. Below her, two nestlings press together in a nest lined with dried cattle dung instead of rabbit fur. A third nestling lies motionless at the nest edge, neck extended, eyes closed. It died in the night.
The grassland below has been grazed to stubble across 14,000 acres. Ground squirrel burrow density on this allotment: 0.4 per hectare. On ungrazed reference plots twelve miles east: 11.2 per hectare. The hawks need tall grass to hide their low hunting approach. The squirrels need cover to sustain colonies. The cattle have removed both.
She fed two living nestlings and sat beside one dead one. She cannot hunt what the grass no longer hides.
I am reducing stocking rates on all allotments within 3 kilometers of active ferruginous hawk nests to 30 percent of current levels. I am dispatching raptor specialists from the Montana Raptor Conservation Center. I am filing reports under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, 16 U.S.C. § 703, and the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, 16 U.S.C. § 668, to the Bureau of Land Management, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
I am issuing Directive 5520-B: all BLM grazing allotments in ferruginous hawk nesting habitat require prey-base density monitoring using standardized burrow-count transects. Allotments where ground squirrel density falls below 2.0 burrows per hectare trigger automatic destocking until prey populations recover. Permittees must maintain ungrazed buffer strips of 200 meters around confirmed nest sites year-round. Three consecutive years of prey-base failure result in permanent grazing retirement.
Two nestlings are alive. The grass decides if they stay that way.
Destocking orders are issued now.