Urban raptors like red-tailed hawks and Cooper's hawks thrive in cities but face unique welfare challenges.
Urban raptors represent conservation success stories — populations of red-tailed hawks, Cooper's hawks, and peregrine falcons have expanded dramatically as they exploit urban prey abundance. However, urban environments create unique welfare hazards. Second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides poison raptors through their prey — a process that causes slow death from internal bleeding. Window collisions kill birds that cannot perceive glass as solid. Providing raptor-safe urban environments requires addressing these hazards through rodenticide reform and bird-safe building design.