She Tracks the Wind for Wildlife’s Sake
/
Arianna Punzalan at Pinnacles National Park information booth during the San Francisco BioBlitz in 2014. (Photo courtesy of Arianna Punzalan)
“I am optimistic in the acceleration of science and solutions,” says Arianna, whose research tool helps wind energy companies locate turbine sites to avoid harm to endangered California Condors.
“I believe enough people are concerned and care about our future to find solutions.” This hopeful statement has the credibility of a wildlife biologist who has written about the Earth’s ongoing sixth mass extinction of animal and plant species.
Arianna has a Bachelor of Science degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of California, Santa Cruz and a Master’s in Ecology from Colorado State. Her parents are from Baguio, Philippines. She was born in Folsom, California, grew up around Sacramento, and is the youngest of four siblings.
Between undergraduate and graduate school, Arianna served as a Biological Science Technician for the California Condor Recovery Program in Pinnacles National Park. Through captive breeding and reintroduction to the wild, this program has contributed to the increase of this endangered New World vulture from a population of 22 California Condors in the 1980s to the current 300.
A Tool to Stop Costly Mistakes from Ever Happening
My father, Arsenio Punzalan, getting a tour of the condor facility at Pinnacles National Park in 2017. (Photo courtesy of Arianna Punzalan)
The centerpiece of her 2020 Master’s thesis, “Predicting Condor Range Expansion in California to Reduce Development Threats,” is a predictive tool that uses years 2016 to 2017 data on condor home ranges and a map from Jesse D’Elia, PhD., U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) biologist, of suitable condor habitat “to simulate overlapping home ranges of hypothetical condor populations sometime in the future.”
Most of us only see wind turbines from a freeway and do not grasp that a blade is about 120 feet long with a tower 380 feet high, almost one hundred feet taller than New York’s Flatiron Building. From a distance, the wingtips of blades that immense give the illusion of moving much slower than 120 mph during wind speeds of up to 15 mph.
According to Arianna, “Turbines near migratory routes, along ridgelines, or coastlines increase collision risk. Large-soaring birds (condors have 9.5 feet wingspans) are less agile with a higher risk of collision.”
Low-flying Greater Prairie Chickens of the Midwest and West seldom collide with blades, but those endangered birds tend to avoid areas around wind towers where they would otherwise breed and forage. Cornell Lab of Ornithology publication, All About Birds, estimated that wind turbines killed 679,000 birds in 2015. (For some context, approximately 2.6 billion birds annually perish by the claws of house cats.)
Arianna sees siting towers in areas that do not interfere with wildlife habitat and avian flyways as a pragmatic alternative to destroying more land for oil drilling and coal mining. “Wind turbines are an important source of renewable energy that will help reduce global warming, which is why it is important to identify areas where there is less risk to wildlife mortality.”
What her research really looks like. (Photo courtesy of Arianna Punzalan)
Her finding that the home ranges of condor populations in two California regions increasingly overlap and interact is becoming a greater consideration in the placement decisions of wind energy companies. She states in her thesis: “Industrial-scale wind energy projects in California consider condor flocks in central and southern California separate and statically persisting within their current ranges. This misconception may result in development within condor habitat that is detrimental to range expansion and recovery.”
Arianna’s predictive tool can be applied to conservation programs for other bird species. “I definitely see how the predictive tool I created could be beneficial for the management of other species, especially when simulating species’ range expansions in identified suitable habitat. I think the fact that my model is user friendly for non-modelers is a benefit, and that managers can simulate range expansion of hypothetical populations with customizable numbers of individuals in different age groups.”
“Range expansion” is one term to add to the vocabulary to keep the eternal candle of hope burning. Arianna is a professional scientist who sees the possibility of doing more than stopping the disappearance of animal species but to actually expand the regions where they forage, hunt, roam and multiply.
Filipina Scientists Are Super Cool
There’s more to Arianna than Fuzzy Kappa values and auto-correlated kernel density estimations.
Arianna lives with fiancé, Ian, and dog, Nova, in Fort Collins, Colorado. In addition to being outdoors, she loves cooking, baking, knitting, and embroidering. And true to her Filipino roots, “I love playing mahjong with my family when we get together.”
The desire to know their Filipino culture is a growing passion of American-born Pinoys and Pinays. She observes, “I think a good way to maintain my heritage and connect others to the Filipino culture is through food. I love sharing dishes with friends and colleagues.”
Another way to form bonds within a Filipino community, she says, is “speaking up about experiences of feeling like I did not belong. I have been fortunate to not have had experiences of racism in the workplace, but not having representation definitely makes it harder to feel like you belong and are welcome.”
Filipino ancestry is integral to her success. “Because of my Filipina culture, I am extremely hard-working and grateful for every opportunity I am offered.”
My parents, Victoria and Arsenio Punzalan, posing with a dropped condor feather at Pinnacles National Park. (Photo courtesy of Arianna Punzalan)
This pride of culture finds expression in her work with young Fil-Ams. “When I work with youth, I am impressed by their technological skills, which adds to my optimism that things will get better in the future.”
Anthony Maddela
Anthony Maddela and his family are members of the Santa Monica Bay Audubon Society and Los Angeles Audubon Society and support the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
More articles from Anthony Maddela
