Potlatch land to become preserve for a rare bird
Posted on Saturday, December 30, 2006
A pine forest in southern Arkansas that will next year become a state wildlife management area will be one of just four public preserves in the state where the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker can be found.
For decades, a small population of the woodpeckers has inhabited parts of the 16, 000 acres owned by Potlatch Forest Holdings Inc., that will be used to create the Moro Big Pine Wildlife Management Area in Calhoun County between Hampton and El Dorado.
Wildlife officials say that while the new area will benefit hunters, bird watchers and other outdoors lovers, it will also benefit the endangered woodpecker.
Potlatch has tracked the birds on its property since the 1970 s. For the last decade, the company has worked to woo the woodpeckers to the forest, by creating “recruitment areas” with artificial roosting cavities, doing controlled burns and even shooing other animals away from the birds’ cavities.
“These little birds seem to have a hard time getting along without our help,” said Tom Foti, who retired as chief of research for the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission in June and now works part-time for the agency focusing largely on the Moro Big Pine area.
The red-cockaded woodpecker, about the size of a cardinal, has been classified as endangered since 1970 under a law that preceded the federal Endangered Species Act of 1973.
Much of its habitat has vanished in recent decades as mature pine forests in the South have been harvested for timber or developed. The bird once was common along the eastern seaboard from Florida to New Jersey and its range also included Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Missouri and Tennessee.
While other woodpeckers bore cavities in dead trees, the red-cockaded woodpecker chooses mature pines, particularly those with a fungus called red heart disease that makes the inner wood rot. Even with the softer wood, it can take the birds one to three years to dig out a cavity large enough for a nest.
Trees that have the disease are often 60 to 100 years old. Trees that old don’t exist in many managed forests, Foti said during a tour of several recruitment areas with Ricky O’Neill, a forester who works for Potlatch.
The recruitment areas provide the perfect habitat for the bird, wide-open forest land with mature pines and few hardwoods. Forests where you can still see “a lot of sky,” as Foti puts it.
Potlatch burns about 3, 000 acres a year to cut down on hardwoods and brush.
O’Neill said the company has been working with the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service since 1995 to protect the bird through what’s called a habitat conservation plan. The federal government requires landowners who want to conduct any activities that could harm endangered species to first get a permit. The plan, which is designed to offset any harm to the species, is required to get the permit.
The area is home to 26 redcockaded woodpeckers, including a pair that was recently discovered, O’Neill said. There are about 18 of the woodpeckers on Potlatch land that is outside the 16, 000-acre area. Some of those birds could be moved to the wildlife management area.
The new wildlife management area is expected to open in July. Under the agreement with Potlatch, which will retain ownership, timber operations will continue, as will hunting.
Chris Davidson, the endangered species coordinator at the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Arkansas field office in Conway, said the agency has been working with Potlatch since last year to develop a new habitat conservation plan that would allow for the birds to be relocated. Once the plan is drafted, it could take two more years of public comments, legal, technical and environmental reviews before it’s finalized.
“It’s important to note too this management is not going to impact public use for hunting and recreation; those activities have occurred for years down there,” he said.
So far there has been limited success moving adult red-cockaded woodpeckers and researchers are trying to figure out why, Davidson said. “You let them go and they tend to disperse and you never see them again.”
As a result, biologists tend to move adolescent birds, he said. And, they normally try to move a female and male to the same area.
“We are trying to establish new breeding groups,” Davidson said. The birds live in colonies with a male and female and one to three helpers.
The only populations in Arkansas on public land are in the Felsenthal National Wildlife Refuge, the Pine City natural area and the Ouachita National Forest, Davidson said.
Bill Holimon, chief of research at the Natural Heritage Commission, said Potlatch’s recruitment areas which have clusters of artificial roost holes could help increase the woodpecker’s population.
Wildfires used to limit the growth of hardwood trees and shrubs. Modern fire suppression has made for denser forests, increasing the number of animals like snakes who prey on the bird. Native grasses play host to insects that the woodpecker feeds on.
The birds are considered critical because they create cavities used by wasps, tree frogs, and other species.
O’Neill, Potlatch’s forester, has seen that firsthand. In one of the bird recruitment areas just off Highway 167 south of Hampton he’s had to chase seven flying squirrels out of one roost hole in the last year. Each of the recruitment sites has four roost holes, a combination of bird- and man-made.
As he toured the site with Foti recently he turned his head from time to time catching one of the woodpeckers’ calls over the din of nearby truck traffic.
The recruitment efforts have paid off. In 2004, there were six pairs of woodpeckers.
“We’ve nearly doubled our population,” said O’Neill, adding that he expects that to happen by next year.
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