Displaying items by tag: endangered species list

A red-cockaded woodpecker in flight. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced last month the bird had been removed from the Endangered Species List.  Martjan Lammertink/USFS

Staccato voice of Southern woodlands removed from Endangered Species List

ATLANTA — Life is looking up for red-cockaded woodpeckers.

These perky, family-focused woodpeckers of mature Southeastern pinelands — they’re the nation’s only woodpecker that excavates cavities in living pines — had been federally listed as endangered for 50 years. Yet late last month, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service downlisted them to threatened.

Their recovery from an estimated 1,470 family groups in the 1970s to about 7,800 groups today from Virginia to Texas reflects decades of work by government agencies, nonprofits and private landowners.

Georgia mirrors that outlook and effort. The number of red-cockaded woodpecker family groups here “is now well north of 1,500,” said Joe Burnam, lead Department of Natural Resources biologist for the species.

The success story ranges from military lands like Fort Stewart, where controlled burns and “recruitment” clusters of artificial nest cavities inserted in trees are helping the population grow, to southwest Georgia quail properties enrolled in Safe Harbor, part of a U.S.-first habitat conservation plan that DNR developed in 1999 for the woodpeckers and private landowners.

Burnam said the downlisting keeps federal protections in place and will not affect DNR conservation practices in the state. “We’ll continue to do what we’ve been doing … managing for the birds (and) their habitat.”

Habitat loss and degradation, a combo that landed the woodpeckers on the Endangered Species Act list, remain the leading threats. For example, Hurricane Helene wiped out over 40 percent of the nest cavity trees at Moody Forest Wildlife Management Area and Natural Area near Baxley.

But new cavity inserts have already been chainsawed into pines, and others will be added, Burnam said.

Library of Congress

Sevier County raptor center will be largest in North America

Project Eagle has landed.

The American Eagle Foundation broke ground Sept. 21 near Kodak, Tennessee on the largest raptor education and rehabilitation facility in North America.

Scheduled to open fall 2022, Project Eagle will be the new home of Challenger, the famous bald eagle seen swooping across football fields as the proud national symbol of the United States of America.

Daily Times: Biologists keep a close eye on imperiled mussel populations in Little River and beyond

The Little River in Blount County just west of Great Smoky Mountains National Park hosted just one of five known fine-rayed pigtoed mussel populations when federal officials placed the mussel on the Endangered Species List in 1976. 

The Daily Times in Maryville reports that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is now conducting a regular five-year review of the mussel's status. It is one of at least 12 mussel species in the river, which has its headwaters in the Great Smoky Mountains and flows through Townsend on its way to its ultimate destination: the Tennessee River. Little River is the main source of water for an expanding Blount County population.

Native mussel populations face the same threats as many non-game fish in the Southern Appalachians. Oxygen is depleted by sediment plumes, which also smother fish eggs, and many mussels rely on small fish to reproduce.

“Reproduction depends on host fish. During the larval stage the young are stuck together in a packet that resembles the prey of shiners and minnows, which is how they become attached to the fish gills or fins to grow for a few weeks,” the Daily Times reports.

NYT: Gray wolf hunters sued state to move season up; first state wolf hunt since 2014 following delisting

Hunters killed 212 gray wolves during a three-day frenzy in Wisconsin after the gray wolf was removed from the Endangered Species List by the Trump administration.

State wildlife officials had wanted to delay the hunt until November so a science-based and fair game plan could be finalized. Wolf-hunting advocates sued to move the hunt up to last week; biologists and indigenous groups said they hunt occurred during breeding season, so the full effects on gray wolf populations could be far-reaching.

The state estimated there were about 1,200 wolves in Wisconsin prior to the hunt.