The golden eagle expert model includes foraging vegetation within 10 miles of known nests and within 4 miles of potential nesting areas, i.e. places with high ruggedness (Vector Ruggedness Measure > 0.01; neighborhood size = 270m). Foraging vegetation includes: herbaceous cover between 30% and 100%; shrub cover between 10% and 50%; tree cover between 10% and 40%; herbaceous wetlands, herbaceous semi-dry lands, and herbaceous semi-wet areas, (based on Landfire Existing Vegetation Cover, 2008; 30m resolution).
 
The golden eagle model output was resampled from 30m to 270m resolution and generalized using majority filter and boundary clean techniques; areas smaller than 40 pixels were removed from the final product.  This model excludes agricultural lands, developed and disturbed areas, open water, playas, and dunes and sand flats, (based on CDFW Land Cover/Natural Vegetation Communities and Sand and Dune Systems, DRECP). Areas within 500m of interstates and highways and areas within 100m of local/residential roads were also excluded, (based on 2012 Tiger roads).