Feds: Relax protections for woodpecker endangered since 1970 [View all]

[douglas9]

The red-cockaded woodpecker, a bird declared endangered in 1970 and surviving today in 11 states' scattered longleaf pine forests, has recovered enough to relax its federal protection, officials said Friday. But not all wildlife advocates agree.

“The red-cockaded woodpecker has flourished to the point that today we can propose to downlist them from endangered to threatened under the Endangered Species Act,” Aurelia Skipwith, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said during a news conference Friday with Interior Secretary David Bernhardt and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Purdue.

But Ben Prater, southeastern director for the nonprofit Defenders of Wildlife, said nothing released to the public so far justifies the change announced Friday at Fort Benning, Georgia, one of 13 military installations working to conserve the cardinal-sized bird.

“We’re still short of recovery goals and certainly have not seen threats be abated,” he said.

Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity, called the bird's recovery "a tremendous victory for the Endangered Species Act” and not the Trump administration.

https://www.chron.com/news/article/Feds-Relax-protections-for-woodpecker-endangered-15597040.php