Why did the red cockaded woodpecker become endangered?

Answer 1

Red-Cockaded woodpeckers are endangered as a result of habitat loss, compounded by many other factors.

They are dependent upon mature forests with standing dead trees, even more so than most other woodpeckers. Since mature forests have been cut for timber, converted to farmland, and managed as tree farms in much of the southeastern US, the birds cannot find enough nest sites or food sources. Mature forests are being harvested and are leaving the woodpeckers with limited or none home.

The current threats include population fragmentation - the fact that the few remaining groups are isolated from other groups - and other factors.

Oddly, two natural factors are listed as threats to the fragmented populations of Red-Cockaded woodpeckers. One is that the larger and more numerous pileated woodpeckers take over their nest holes, making the holes too large for the Red-Cockaded woodpeckers to use. The other is the southern pine beetle, which feeds on the same dead trees as other insects which the woodpecker eats, but the pine beetle infestations are so numerous that they damage the woodpeckers' nest holes.

See http://www.iucnredlist.org/search/details.php/17258/all. Under "detailed documentation" is a list of specific threats to the species and conservation efforts.

Answer 2

I assume you mean red cockaded woodpecker. This denizen of southern pine forests of the U.S. saw it's longleaf pine forests decimated by logging in the early years of the 19th through the 20th centuries. Strict logging measures were enacted to save pinewoods habitats, and this bird's numbers are slowly increasing.

Answer 3

For the same reason as the ivory billed woodpecker. After the Civil War, southern landowners were devasted and impoverished by the effects of the war on the southern economy. The northern lumber mills saw oppurtunity there, and bought millions of acres of forest at rock bottom prices from desperate landowners, and clear cut many southern forests, resulting in habitat loss for the woodpeckers. This rape of the southern forest lands is one of the biggest mistakes made after the war by the northern states, as it changed the biome of the south for decades, which are only now reclaiming a fraction of their past glory.

Answer 4

Officialy, the red cockaded woodpecker of the U.S. southeast is endangered, but there has been some resurgence of late, and the population is increasing.

The species requires large stands of loblolly pine, and many of these forests were clear cut by greedy lumber interests during the 40's and 50's.

This species has been upgraded to "Threatened " status now, no longer endangered.

Answer 5

Cutting down of the southern longleaf pine forests which are the habitat of this species. With the regrowth of these forests in some areas, like the Carolinas and Georgia, Florida, there has been some resurgence in this species' numbers.

Answer 6

Because of the major decline in large tracts of forested area, which it needs to survive.