The red-cockaded woodpecker, an iconic bird in southeastern forests, has grown more numerous. So the Fish and Wildlife Service no longer lists it as an endangered species, instead classifying it as a threatened species. The Associated Press reports:
in the 1970s, the red-cockaded woodpecker population had dipped as low as 1,470 clusters — or groups of nests…Today, there are an estimated 7,800 clusters. “It’s an amazing bird that has an unusual communal nesting structure…All nests usually cluster in the same tree, and the birds stick together as a family unit.”
Red-cockaded woodpeckers are habitat specialists that nest only in mature long-leaf pine forests, building nests in cavities of living trees partially hollowed out by a fungus.
Long-leaf pine forests once spanned much of the Atlantic and Gulf coastal regions, from New Jersey to Texas, but logging and development in the region reduced that to only 3% of this original habitat….
Red-cockaded woodpeckers were one of the first species designated as “endangered” in the United States in 1970, and the birds received full protections with passage of the Endangered Species Act of 1973….It will still be prohibited to “take” — meaning harass, hunt or harm — the woodpeckers or their habitat in most instances. But the status change allows for the possibility of some new exceptions to those protections.
Recent regrowth of forests is helping these woodpeckers.
Reforestation over the past century has also greatly mitigated climate change in the southeastern United States. Most of the world’s forests are growing.
In the U.S., forest has expanded over the past century due to more efficient agriculture, and the replacement of horses with automobiles. The automobile restored New England’s forests, which had mostly disappeared by 1910, but now cover much of the region. Today, Vermont is 78% forested, but in 1910, it was mostly un-forested.
The amount of vegetation on the Earth has increased every year for the past 30 years. .
The central Asian country of Uzbekistan is planting a forest of salt-resistant trees and plants in a desert to reduce salt storms.
