COASTAL OBSERVER

A small bird that has a big impact on land use decisions on the Waccamaw Neck came of the federal list of endangered species this week.

The red-cockaded woodpecker is no longer facing extinction, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, but it remains a threatened species. The “downlisting” was hailed as a milestone by federal and state officials.

Others aren’t so sure.

“I’m skeptical for a lot of reasons,” said Amy Armstrong, executive director of the S.C. Environmental Law Project, who spent four years managing red-cockaded woodpecker habitat for the state Department of Natural Resources. “They are still highly vulnerable and highly at risk.”

The small black and white birds, with a barely visible red streak on the head of the males, live in old-growth pine forests. They nest in cavities that they dig out of the trunk. Centuries of logging and timber management that replaced slow-growing longleaf pines with other species such as loblolly that provided pulpwood and were harvested regularly reduced the woodpecker’s habitat.

“They are iconic, and people feel very strongly about them,” Armstrong said.

The red-cockaded woodpecker was listed as endangered when the Endangered Species Act was adopted in 1973.

“Through decades of collaborative efforts from a wide coalition of partners, we have brought this iconic species back from the brink of extinction, ensuring that future generations will continue to see these incredible birds thriving in their natural habitats,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in announcing the downlisting last month. “This is another important accomplishment in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s implementation of the iconic Endangered Species Act.”

South Carolina adopted a Safe Harbor Program for private landowners that removed some restrictions under the Endangered Species Act in exchange for managing their land to improve habitat for red-cockaded woodpeckers.

Hobcaw Barony was one of the first to enroll in 1999. There are now about 200 landowners in the program with 360,000 acres, according to the state Department of Natural Resources.

Protection of the woodpecker habitat figured into the state’s acquisition of Sandy Island in the 1990s, the conservation easements placed on property at Arcadia Plantation and Prince George and even the construction of Waccamaw Intermediate School. The school site was once intended as a regional park, but nearby red-cockaded woodpecker habitat led to a change of plans.

The woodpeckers and their habitat will still be protected under the Endangered Species Act, Armstrong said. Her concern is that the change from endangered to threatened sends the wrong message and that it could mark a shift toward removing its protections altogether.

“It’s the optics and perception of that kind of determination,” she said. “It’s the perception that we’re OK. We’re not OK.”

Craig Sasser, the manager of the Waccamaw National Wildlife Refuge, recalled visiting a red-cockaded woodpecker nesting cavity with students from Waccamaw Middle School. The tree was at the corner of Wildcat Way and Reunion Drive near the school.

The school was built in 2001 on property acquired from Brookgreen Gardens. When Sasser and the students looked at the nest in 2006, he told them how the property had to be managed to maintain the birds’ habitat.

“If you don’t manage it, they will leave,” he said.

For longleaf pines, a crucial part of that management is burning the undergrowth. With residential development in the area, Sasser felt that was unlikely to happen. It didn’t. The birds left.

“They really do need active management, and fire’s a huge part of that,” he said.

Armstrong’s work with Natural Resources included making sure there were regular burns.

“I always wondered how it would happen if we continued the current land use practices,” she said.

In addition to encroaching development that makes burns more difficult, “these birds are particularly vulnerable to habitat fragmentation,” Armstrong said. “So are a lot of other species.”

Conversely, Sasser has seen the species benefit from protection of contiguous tracts.

“We’re fortunate to have Sandy Island,” he said.

In 2006, there were 40 clusters of red-cockaded woodpeckers on the island. Sasser said he’s been told that the birds nesting from Arcadia to Brookgreen and into Horry County are descendants of those birds.

“It is the flagship for RCWs,” he said.

At Hasty Point, the tract in Plantersville that was added to the refuge in 2020, stands of loblolly pine are being converted to longleaf habitat. Sasser said the process was accelerated by a June storm that cut a swath through the property before crossing the river to strike Willbrook and Brookgreen.

Other plantation tracts west of the Waccamaw River are also converting to longleaf, which is more resilient and suited to other species, he said. That is likely to continue with the closing of the International Paper mill in Georgetown and the reduced demand for pulpwood.

“We could see a lot of red-cockaded woodpecker habitat expanding in the landscape,” Sasser said. “The market’s the driver.”

That will take time, Armstrong said.

“There’s still a lot of work to be done,” she said. “We shouldn’t take our foot off the gas.”