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The red-cockaded woodpecker (RCW) was once a common sight in the southern U.S., before logging and alteration of the fire regime reduced the original pine forest habitat of the bird. Designated as endangered in 1970, small groups of red-cockaded woodpeckers can still be found in a range that stretches from Virginia to Florida and west to the eastern part of Texas and southeast Oklahoma. Red-cockaded woodpeckers are uniquely adapted to the fire-maintained southern pine ecosystem and require relatively large, living pine trees for nesting.
The fourth Red-Cockaded Woodpecker Symposium held last week in Savannah, GA, brought together most of the individuals, organizations and agencies involved in the conservation, recovery, and management of the red-cockaded woodpecker. Over 77 presentations covered a wide range of topics. Presentations by USDA Forest Service researchers with the Southern Research Station (SRS) are highlighted.
*Woodpeckers usually excavate their nesting and roosting cavities out of the soft, rotten wood of dead trees. The red-cockaded woodpecker is the only member of the family that excavates its nesting cavities in living pines, usually older trees infected with red heart fungus, which attacks and softens the heartwood. Even with this advantage, digging out a cavity can take from one to six years. Richard Conner, research wildlife biologist at the SRS Wildlife Habitat and Silviculture unit located in Nacogdoches, TX, presented research confirming RCW preference for older pine trees, especially for older longleaf pines. SRS research had previously shown that the dominant male of a RCW group seeks out the newest cavity in the pines being used by the woodpecker group when establishing his nesting cavity. While excavating, the bird pecks away the bark of the tree to form resin wells above and below the nesting cavity: leaking resin, sticky and clear, deters the snakes that prey on woodpecker eggs and young. Conner's recent research suggests that the socially dominant breeding male can determine which active cavity tree produces the most resin, and adopts that tree for his roost tree. Since the longleaf pine has been shown to sustain higher yields of resin over time than loblolly and shortleaf pines, the data also strongly suggest that the longleaf pine--the traditional habitat of the red-cockaded woodpecker--is indeed the ideal nest tree for this species. For more information: Richard Conner (936-569-7981) or rconner@fs.fed.us or c_connerrn@titan.sfasu.edu .
*Jim Hanula, research entomologist at the SRS Southern Forest Insects and Diseases unit in Athens, GA, presented the results of a decade of research on red-cockaded woodpecker prey. The data for prey preference came from examining close to 12,000 photographs from cameras placed at 31 nest cavities at four locations. Five years of data showed that, although RCW were seen preying on over 40 different arthropods, the most common prey fed to nestlings was wood cockroaches, probably selected because they were the most abundant insects on the tree boles. Hanula and fellow researchers found no evidence that RCW prefers any particular prey: the woodpeckers were even recorded eating blueberries at a Lower Atlantic Coastal Plain site. Researchers also studied the abundance of arthropods on particular trees. They found that abundance increased on trees 60 to 70 years of age, and then remained fairly constant. They also found that, during the day, the loose, flaky bark of longleaf pine trees harbored over twice as many arthropods as the bark of loblolly pines of similar size. Hanula concluded by stating that his results show that converting loblolly pine stands planted on longleaf sites back to longleaf pines--and keeping these stands well-stocked with older, large diameter trees--would increase the available food for the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker. For more information: Jim Hanula (706-559-4253) or jhanula@fs.fed.us.
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*Craig Rudolph, ecologist with the Nacogdoches unit, presented a paper on the status and management of red-cockaded woodpeckers in the west Gulf Coastal Plain and the Interior Highlands. Rudolph found that, even though management efforts have intensified over the last two decades, the overall results are "depressingly minimal." Populations on the national forests of the four-state region have increased only 12 percent since 1990--a dismal one percent a year--a major cause of concern in light of the resources used. Rudolph points to the lack of sufficient prescribed burning as the most pervasive problem across the areas he surveyed. Smoke management issues, regulations, limited resources and legal challenges such as those on the Angelina and Sabine National Forest in Texas are barriers to the cycle of burning needed to maintain RCW habitat. In a second presentation, Rudolph called for a short-term integrated strategy to address the deficiencies that exist in almost all currently available RCW habitats. Management techniques such as building artificial cavities, reducing midstory vegetation, and moving birds from populous groups to small declining ones are necessary until timber management programs produce and maintain the forest structure needed by red-cockaded woodpeckers. This structure is, again, that of the historic pine stands--an open canopy of large pines with little or no midstory and an abundant and diverse groundcover. For more information: Craig Rudolph (936-569-7981) or crudolph01@fs.fed.us.
*The fire-maintained shortleaf pine forests that once grew in the Ouachita Mountains of west-central Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma supported populations of red-cockaded woodpecker. As in other areas, a combination of harvest of the original forest and fire suppression led to a rapid decline in populations of this species. By 1996, when the Ouachita National Forest was designated for red-cockaded woodpecker recovery, only 11 groups of red-cockaded woodpeckers remained in Arkansas. Forest managers began restoring 118,000 acres of national forest to the shortleaf pine-bluestem grass communities original to the area by thinning overstory trees, removing most of the midstory, and using an aggressive program of prescribed burning. Ron Thill, project leader of the SRS Nacogdoches, TX unit reported on surveys conducted to determine the effect on general species richness and abundance of the restoration efforts for red-cockaded woodpecker. The surveys showed a higher overall abundance and species richness of butterflies, reptiles, mammals, and birds. The red-cockaded woodpecker and other species of conservation concern--including the Diana fritillary, northern bobwhite, prairie warbler, brown-headed nuthatch, and Bachman's sparrow--responded well to the restoration. For more information: Ron Thill (936-569-7981) or rthill@fs.fed.us.
The RCW Symposium was organized and hosted by the Department of Interior, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. A complete listing of presentations can found at http://rcwrecovery.fws.gov/symposium4.htm.