Endangered Woodpeckers Make Gains on Conservation Lands
Posted: 25-Feb-2008; Updated: 24-Apr-2008
Endangered red-cockaded woodpeckers are benefiting from conservation incentive programs. (Photo: Copyright Greg W. Lasley)
Recent reports show red-cockaded woodpecker increases at the site of a conservation bank in Georgia, a property that is slated for purchase by the state. On Safe Harbor land in Virginia, biologists discovered a woodpecker from North Carolina, underscoring the potential for conservation lands to link important RCW populations.
The good news follows an earlier assessment by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which in its 2003 revised RCW recovery report lauded Safe Harbor programs for the bird as an “immense success.” More than one-third of the woodpeckers on private lands are on Safe Harbor properties, where, as of January 2008, 278 landowners in nine southeastern states are enrolled in the voluntary program and managing several hundred thousand acres to benefit RCWs.
Help from private landowners is crucial for the recovery of the red-cockaded woodpecker (Picoides borealis), which was listed as endangered in 1970 following the loss and degradation of more than 90% of the bird’s preferred longleaf forest habitat. In the next quarter-century, even with ESA protection, the species made only modest gains, largely on public lands. Mature longleaf requires active management, including prescribed burns or other measures to mimic wildfires that were once common but are now suppressed on most forestlands.
The northernmost red-cockaded woodpeckers are at The Nature Conservancy’s Piney Grove Preserve in Virginia. TNC is the permit holder for a Safe Harbor Agreement that includes the preserve, where the tiny population numbers between 27 and 30 birds. During last fall’s census, a new female bird was sighted in a group that had recently lost its breeding female. A legband revealed that she was banded in Tyrell County, North Carolina in 2006. If she stays at Piney Grove, she could provide valuable genetic diversity for the small Virginia population.
Woodpecker numbers are also increasing at Southlands Experimental Forest near Bainbridge, Georgia, site of a conservation bank established by International Paper Company in 1999. At the time, only three woodpeckers, all males and living in two groups, were at Southlands. Today there are 20 woodpecker groups at Southlands. Groups are the standard counting measure for RCWs, which live in cooperative colonies.
The open park-like structure of mature longleaf forest is the red-cockaded woodpecker's preferred habitat. (Photo: Randy Browning)
When IP signed the Habitat Conservation Plan that established its Southlands conservation bank, the company’s baseline was 18 woodpecker groups over its entire forest holdings. Many of these groups occupied marginal habitat where prospects were dim for their longterm survival. Southlands—site of IP’s largest contiguous block of longleaf forest—offered the best potential for RCWs. IP committed to an ambitious long range goal of establishing 25 to 30 groups there and began intensive habitat restoration with prescribed fire and other management. In return, the HCP gave the company greater flexibility in managing operational timberlands at other locations.
RCWs were translocated to Southlands from the robust population at Fort Benning, Georgia. Woodpeckers have also arrived on their own from other sites, including the sizeable population at Apalachicola National Forest in Florida. Southlands is also well situated to be a future link east to woodpeckers in the Red Hills area of Georgia, which are thriving on private lands enrolled in Safe Harbor.
In July 2001, the National Audubon Society’s Atlanta chapter designated Southlands as an Important Bird Area. Audubon cited International Paper’s willingness to go beyond its legal obligations and actively manage habitat for RCWs, as well as a variety of other birds.
Like many other industrial forest product companies impacted by globalization, International Paper is selling its U.S. holdings. The State of Georgia recently announced that, with help from the Conservation Fund, it would purchase Southlands Experimental Forest. This new ownership ensures the future of this growing red-cockaded woodpecker population.
Margaret McMillan
Endangered Species Specialist
Center for Conservation Incentives
Environmental Defense
