Rehabilitation of birds of prey and their survival after release

The amount of knowledge we have concerning methodologies of the rehabilitation of birds of prey and the activity and success of released individuals is very disproportionate. Literature searches reveal very few studies conducted to ascertain what effectively occurs to rehabilitated birds after they have been released. Conclusions concerning recruitment into the natural population are only hypothesised, as based usually individual resighting or ring recovery. This paper aims to review how several aspects of rehabilitation can affect the survival probability after release. Additionally, it reviews the available data concerning the general activity and movements of several species of Falconiformes and Strigiformes, as well as describing the results obtained by some studies specifically designed to investigate in detail the general behaviour and ecological preferences of rehabilitated individuals of some species belonging to those taxa.