Defenders Magazine

On the Ground: Pecking Up the Pieces

By Heidi Ridgley

© S. Maka/Vireo

As tens of thousands of shattered and flooded out homes still sit rotting in the hot New Orleans' sun, and the debate over rebuilding the city rages, one small community blown asunder by Hurricane Katrina last summer is well on its way to recovery-with the help of a little wood putty and some white paint.

Given the devastation to human communities caused by the worst natural disaster in U.S. history, few had time last fall to ponder the fate of a group of about 60 endangered red-cockaded woodpeckers in Big Branch National Wildlife Refuge, along the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain in southeastern Louisiana. When U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) biologists finally had a chance to survey the area a few weeks following the storm, they found what they feared most: a tangle of uprooted and topless trees-the downed roosts of the birds.

"It looked like a war scene when we got there," says FWS biologist Charlotte Parker. "At least 70 percent of the birds' roosting trees were either down or broken. Many splintered off right where the cavity was because it was the weakest point of the tree." This is particularly troublesome given that previous habitat destruction had already landed this seven-inch-long woodpecker on the list of federally endangered species back in 1970.

Named after the commonly used 19th-century word "cockade," which refers to a ribbon on a hat (even though the red patch on the male's head is hardly visible), red-cockaded woodpeckers prefer mature pines at least 80 years old. These trees are often infected with a fungus that softens the wood and allows the birds to more easily carve out chambers-a painstaking project that can take one to six years.

At one time, at least a million red-cockadeds spread throughout longleaf pine forests from southeastern New Jersey to Florida and west to Texas. But as logging reduced the forests to 3 percent of their original expanse, the woodpeckers drastically declined as well-by 99 percent. Some 40 years ago, fewer than 10,000 of these nonmigratory birds survived in scattered, isolated and declining populations.

Today their numbers stand at 14,000-a slight increase thanks to ongoing efforts at refuges like Big Branch. Although the population here can never fully recover-there isn't enough habitat to sustain them-the refuge's woodpeckers are considered an important donor group for restocking other territories. Once the Big Branch population reaches its capacity-considered to be 20 family groups or clusters-biologists plan to periodically reintroduce individuals to other areas to help strengthen genetic diversity among growing but isolated populations.

To help the Big Branch birds recover from Katrina's wrath, FWS biologists used chainsaws to clear the area and get to the still-standing trees, where they installed four artificial nesting cavities per cluster, enough to provide individual housing for each parent and at least two young. "It was really important to quickly get out and put up additional cavity inserts before the birds left the area," says Byron Fortier, a park ranger at the refuge. "I can't tell you where they would've gone, but they would've looked for new nest sites and not found any, or they would've ended up in areas where they'd have been in more danger."

By the end of last December, biologists had installed 41 artificial cavity inserts. "It's quite a workout," says Christopher Carrell, a biology intern who aided in the recovery effort. After climbing up trees 20 feet or more with the inserts in hand, workers carefully wedged out cavities in the trees with hammers and screwdrivers. Once in place, inserts stayed put with the help of shingles and wood putty. Then white paint was sprayed below the box to catch a bird's eye: Red-cockadeds-the only North American woodpecker that resides in living trees-peck little holes around their homes to keep the pine trees' white, sticky sap flowing and their biggest predator-the rat snake-from crawling up the tree.

Biologists will continue to monitor the birds' recovery throughout the year and to install more boxes as needed with the help of a $4,700 grant from Defenders of Wildlife. "Many of the trees where we placed the artificial cavities have been damaged by salt water intrusion from the hurricane," says Parker. "We don't know if these trees will live or die."

What they do know-after tallying the results of the spring woodpecker survey-is that Katrina had taken a big toll. Of the 19 red-cockaded clusters in Big Branch before the storm-each with as many as six family members-five were lost. Without the inserts, says Fortier, the outcome could have been worse. "All but two of the artificial cavities are being used," he says. "In one case, before the biologist was even finished climbing down the tree, three birds flew in."

Of such instant gratification-for both man and bird-Carrell says, "All I could think when I heard their squeaky, dog-toy-sounding call and saw them fly in is, 'I guess we've done a good job,' and all I could do then was hope that they would stick around."