Georgia Habitat Plan May Put Endangered Woodpecker At Risk

The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) today criticized a plan submitted to the US Fish and Wildlife Service by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources that may unnecessarily put endangered red-cockaded woodpeckers in the state at risk. The plan would allow private landowners to destroy the habitat of isolated woodpecker breeding pairs in exchange for mitigating the loss on lands elsewhere in the state. The theory behind the plan is that such isolated groups are doomed eventually to disappear because they cannot interbreed with other red-cockaded woodpeckers. Yet, the plan provides no standard by which to judge whether woodpecker groups are isolated. The plan allows the destruction of habitat for as many as 19 breeding groups of woodpeckers. If approved, the plan could lead to similar plans in other states that put additional woodpecker groups at risk.

“The plan lacks proper scientific oversight. Without such oversight, populations of this endangered bird could be irreparably harmed,” said EDF senior ecologist David Wilcove. “We have asked the state of Georgia and the US Fish and Wildlife Service to assemble a panel of experts to insure that the plan benefits woodpeckers.”

EDF did praise the portion of the Georgia plan that establishes a safe harbor program for the red-cockaded woodpecker. The proposed safe harbor program is modeled after one originally designed by EDF in coordination with scientific experts, the US Fish and Wildlife Service and others. Under the proposed safe harbor program, landowners agree to protect and restore habitat for endangered species but are given assurances that their actions won’t lead to increased regulatory restrictions on their property. Over one million acres of private lands are now enrolled in similar programs elsewhere in the country, including over 100,000 acres of privately-owned red-cockaded woodpecker habitat in the Carolinas. EDF has worked with timber companies and others to develop conservation plans for the woodpecker.

“The Endangered Species Act has too often alienated private landowners,” said EDF economist Robert Bonnie. “The safe harbor program, on the other hand, has proven that landowners, conservationists, and states can work together to protect endangered species.”

Despite its listing as endangered in 1970, the red-cockaded woodpecker has continued to decline. The red-cockaded woodpecker was once a common inhabitant of the pine forests of Georgia and the southern Coastal Plain. Georgia’s population may have once exceeded 100,000 birds; today there are likely fewer than 1,500. The bird’s decline has mirrored that of the nation’s once vast longleaf pine forests, which covered 72-90 million acres, about 11 million of which were in Georgia. Just over 400,000 acres of natural longleaf pine forest exist in Georgia today. The Red Hills region of southern Georgia and northern Florida is home to the largest remaining population of red-cockaded woodpeckers on private lands.