Red-cockaded woodpecker loses endangered species status

WASHINGTON—Today, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced it will reclassify the red-cockaded woodpecker from an “endangered” species to a “threatened” species, removing key protections for the bird. This decision risks undoing decades of hard work to preserve this iconic Southern bird.

“While it’s encouraging that the service responded to many of our concerns by retaining more of the bird’s prior legal protections, the downlisting decision is still not based on the best interest of the species,” said Ramona McGee, SELC senior attorney and Wildlife Program leader. “The service has not met its own scientific recovery plan criteria to justify loosening protections for this imperiled Southern icon.”  

Once common across the South, now as few as 7,800 active clusters of red-cockaded woodpeckers live in isolated pockets of pine forests. Logging and fire suppression destroyed much of the longleaf pine habitat where the woodpecker makes its home. The increasing effects of climate change, including more severe storms and rising temperatures, now pose even greater risks to the limited habitat the red-cockaded woodpecker has left, much of which is in the hurricane-prone coastal plain.

FWS’s own species status assessment shows that most of the woodpecker’s isolated populations are precariously small, with “inherently very low or low resiliency” to withstand environmental threats. SELC previously submitted comments on the Service’s proposal to downlist the red-cockaded woodpecker, as well as its subsequent revisions to what legal protections would remain for the bird under the proposal and partnered with Defenders of Wildlife to ask the agency to reconsider the proposed downlisting in light of climate change.

“Improvements in the red-cockaded woodpecker numbers prove endangered species protections work, but FWS should be wary of removing those protections prematurely,” McGee said. “SELC will continue to defend this iconic bird and advocate for conservation measures to prevent backsliding on the species population gains, as well as conservation measures for the broader Southern pine forest ecosystem that has benefitted from red-cockaded woodpecker conservation.  

Find a map of red-cockaded woodpecker populations here.