Seen this red-dotted bird around NC? First on the endangered list, it's come back | Opinion

No species exists in a vacuum. It is part of a community, dependent on its neighbors for survival. That’s why recent news that the red-cockaded woodpecker has been moved from endangered to threatened is a reason to celebrate. It also comes with a note of caution and concern for its future.

The little bird, whose red is confined to a mere dot on the male’s head, was the first bird placed on the Endangered Species List. More than 50 years later, its numbers have swelled from just 1,470 breeding groups to 7,800 breeding groups. One of the healthiest populations is in the North Carolina Sandhills.

Although these numbers do not fully meet the milestones set forth decades ago, the population is most certainly on its way to recovery — as long as we remain committed to managing its home. This current success has been the result of a effort between many partners, both public and private, and aided significantly by the resources and protections afforded by the Endangered Species Act.

This is a great example of the positive impact of the act, providing an emergency room to heal the wounds to our natural world.

The red-cockaded woodpecker’s existence is closely tied to longleaf pine and controlled burning because the birds make their homes almost exclusively in mature longleaf pine trees that are kept open by regular fire. Restoring longleaf forests, which once covered 90 million acres across the Southeast but shrunk to a low of 3.2 million acres, was key to bringing back the red-cockaded woodpecker. The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is one of a host of organizations working to restore longleaf pine. We have added 2 million acres of longleaf forest since that low point. As longleaf came back, so did the red-cockaded woodpecker.

Most of that longleaf recovery has been driven by funding aimed at red-cockaded woodpeckers, and that funding has largely been a result of the Endangered Species Act. Here in North Carolina, those dollars came from the Department of Defense (DOD), which was ordered to restore the population of red-cockaded woodpeckers at Fort Liberty. TNC, DOD, and other conservation partners took an innovative approach to restoration with the DOD paying for conservation on adjoining land for woodpeckers.