Respecting the raptors while climbing at Pinnacles

In Pinnacles National Park, falcons, hawks, eagles and other birds of prey occasionally glide right beneath climbers ascending the park’s iconic rocky peaks.

But in the mid-1980s, park-goers climbed too close to raptor nesting sites in the cliffs, causing the birds to abandon their nests.

The park initially responded by closing all climbing areas during the breeding season. But after frustration with the blanket closure, Pinnacles park managers and the climbing community came together to create a solution.

“What the park managers came up with was the raptor monitoring program,” said Gavin Emmons, a wildlife biologist at Pinnacles National Park who currently oversees the program. “A biologist or somebody on staff was tasked with monitoring throughout the breeding season to determine exactly where nesting raptors – particularly falcons – were nesting.”

The raptor monitoring program is still going strong today, 36 years since it began.

Because of its unique rock formations, high concentration of climbing routes and moderate weather, the park is a popular climbing destination. Emmons estimates it hosts thousands of climbers annually, the busiest time being from December to April.

To help protect the park’s raptor population, especially those that nest in cliffs, park officials have reinstated the annual climbing advisories as of Jan. 18. They request that off-trail hikers and climbers avoid the High Peaks, the Balconies Cliffs area, the Piedras Bonitas/Gargoyle area, Resurrection Wall, Little Pinnacles/Yaks Wall and the Egg Rock/Teapot Dome areas, according to a news release.

Today, Emmons and his team conduct monthly surveys for nesting sites throughout the raptor breeding season, which runs from January to July. The initial advisories are put in place in areas where birds have nested in the past five years. However, if no one observes nests in a particular location for three consecutive months, the climbing advisory in that region is lifted.

“We’ve found that (these measures) have been pretty effective,” Emmons said. “As long as (climbers) are kept in the loop about what’s going on at the park – how advisories are going into effect and what areas they cover – they’ve been really receptive to that and really excellent stewards.”

Emmons himself is a climber and is heavily involved in the climbing community at Pinnacles. He frequently serves as a liaison between climbers and the park service.

In 2021, according to a news release, park staff observed 12 pairs of prairie and peregrine falcons, which produced 40 fledglings.

“Last year, we had a particularly successful year after some years of downtrend for prairie falcons,” Emmons said. He suspects that delayed seasonal rainfall resulted in poor vegetation coverage, making falcon prey species, like ground squirrels, easier to capture.

Other raptors spotted last year include American kestrels, golden eagles, red-tailed hawks, red-shouldered hawks, Cooper’s hawks, long-eared owls, barn owls, great horned owls, turkey vultures and California condors.

It’s hard to tell what this year’s breeding season will look like, Emmons said. But he has already observed prairie and peregrine falcon pairs beginning to occupy their territories and display courting behaviors.

Most climbers appear to respect the raptor monitoring program, according to Emmons. Many of them know him and strike up a conversation about the birds when he’s out surveying the cliffs.

“Birds are just a huge part of the experience of climbing there,” said Chris Henry, who has been climbing at Pinnacles for the past five years.

Henry believes that the park’s communication about route closures and rationale is excellent. According to him, the raptor monitoring program is the model of how similar conservation efforts should work.

“I fully support it,” Henry said. “The birds have more of a right to be there than I do.”