Woodpeckers relocated
For the first time ever, redcockaded woodpeckers (RCWs) have been moved onto private land in Alabama in an effort to increase one of the state's last remaining populations of this endangered species. In the pre-dawn hours of November 9, 2007, a group of biologists from the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (ADCNR), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), and the Alabama Forest Resources Center (ALFRC) gathered at Enon Plantation near Hurtsboro, Alabama. The stage was set for an historic event - the release of seven juvenile red-cockaded woodpeckers that had been captured the evening before at Fort Benning, Georgia.
Federally protected by the Endangered Species Act since 1973, the RCW has suffered dramatic population declines as a combined result of fire suppression and conversion of the once expansive, old-growth, southern pine forests to agriculture, urbanization, and shortrotation pine plantations. Prior to European settlement, RCWs were widespread and locally abundant in the Southeast. By the late 1980s most remaining populations were small, isolated, and declining. Today, Alabama is the largest RCW populations are in national forests, but roughly a dozen breeding pairs are known to persist on private land in just four counties - Bullock, Chilton, Coosa, and Russell. These small populations will not survive without significant habitat management because RCWs are sensitive to habitat degradation and fragmentation.
Faced with the imminent loss of this species from his property, Enon Plantation landowner Campbell "Cam" Lanier, III entered into a partnership agreement with the Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries Division of the ADCNR, USFWS, and the ALFRC to translocate RCWs to his property.
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