World’s largest woodpecker feared extinct (1 Viewer)

World’s largest woodpecker feared extinct
11-07-2003

Cambridge, United Kingdom – BirdLife International researchers have expressed their fear that the stunning Imperial Woodpecker Campephilus imperialis may now be extinct after an expedition to the last area reporting sightings of the bird found no evidence of a resident population.

The black-and-white woodpecker, at 60cm-long the largest in the world, was formerly found throughout the Sierra Madre Occidental mountains of northwestern Mexico, and was not historically a rare species within its habitat of pine forests at high altitudes. However, the last confirmed report of the bird was in 1956, although there have been eight local reports of sightings since that date in two remote areas.

A joint expedition by BirdLife International and a local conservation NGO, Prosima, spent 16 days in an isolated part of north central Durango state, where in 1996, the woodpecker had been sighted in a pristine canyon. The site was close to an area where, two years before, on an extensive expedition lasting 11 months, researchers found evidence of the bird, but had no sightings.

The Imperial Woodpecker will now be listed in the 2004 IUCN Red List as ‘Critically Endangered (Possibly Extinct)’. The bird’s decline has come through the loss of its habitat – it required extensive areas (26 km2 per pair) of continuous open and untouched pine forest with dead trees for feeding and nesting. Although large areas of pine forests remain, they are logged, with dead trees cut down. Hunting is also thought to have contributed to the bird’s downfall.

“It’s a tragic day to lose almost the last hope of its survival. The world will be a poorer place without the Imperial Woodpecker.” —David Wege, BirdLife

“The unexpected lead that this most recent expedition followed up represented a last realistic hope of finding the magnificent Imperial Woodpecker,” says BirdLife International’s Americas Programme Manager, David Wege. “Once found throughout the huge Sierra Madre Occidental in Mexico, right up to within 80 km of the US border, targeted searches over the last 10 years have failed to find convincing evidence that the species still exists.”

“Few people can imagine a bird more impressive than the much publicised, and closely related Ivory-billed Woodpecker, but the Imperial Woodpecker was 20% bigger at 60 cm long – that’s one huge woodpecker and it’s a tragic day to lose almost the last hope of its survival. The world will be a poorer place without the Imperial Woodpecker,” concludes Wege.

Tragic, indeed. How very sad!

I still hold out hope that some Ivory-Bills remain in Cuba.

I believe that 'near extinct' species will become more and more prolific that the bird charities will find their resources strained and some birds will not be helped. That is the sorry picture.

VERY SAD

When will we learn?

So how are the other Ivory-Billed Woodpeckers (Campephilus principalis) doing? Are there any of those left?

I gather that the Campephilus imperialis main problem was that it was hunted to extinction.

Hi Walwyn,

It wasn't hunting that did for either Imperial or Ivory-billed, in both cases it was habitat destruction. They both depended on huge contiguous areas of undisturbed primary pine forst containing large numbers of dead & decaying trees. This habitat no longer exists, and hasn't done for about 50 years, in either the SE US, Cuba or NW Mexico. All there is left is small fragments not large enough to support single pairs, let alone viable populations.

There's a detailed discussion of the problem in Lynx HBW vol. 7

Michael

just the way of this mad greedy world that we live in.
bert

The photo didn't show when I read this earlier this morning. What a MAGNIFICENT bird!

I still want to hope.

Michael,

The reference I have is pretty old, lat 1960s, but said that:

Its numbers began to decrease early this century, but here the cause was killing by man not destruction of the forests. The pine forests of the Sierra are thinly and widely inhabited by Indians and other Mexicans who still depend upon wild animals for most of their meat and who have always considered these large woodpeckers as food. In serveral localities the imperial woodpecker disappeared within a year or two after new sawmills or settlements were established, even though large tracts of virgin pine forest remained.

Click to expand...

I suppose over time opinions change, certainly since the 1960s the destruction of its habitat has ensured its extinction, but it ewas in a pretty pecarious position before that.
http://www.biodiversityhotspots.org/xp/Hotspots/mesoamerica/?showpage=Biodiversity

To me, the most tragic part of this tragic tale, is that the last confirmed sighting of an Imperial Woodpecker was in 1956 - or 47 years ago... and yet in the intervening years, what do you suppose the world at large (outside Birdlife and similar organisations) has done?

I expect the answer to that is "continue to destroy the habitat".

I'm sorry to say... but I think there is little hope for almost anything on this planet of which we are in the privileged and undeserving position of stewards.

And it annoys and exasperaties the hell out of me that people refuse to see this!

I think you and I will be OK, and Bush, and Blair, and Gates and Soros, and Greenspan and George, and Chirac and Mbeki and Putin and Howard and Clark and Koizumi and Schroeder etc. etc. etc.

But if things don't change (and they won't) I reckon we have less than 500 years before meltdown!

Sorry to be so pessimistic.

Questions

Overtime the natural tendency is for biodiversity to decrease. There are far fewer forms of animal, and plant life than before the rise of mammals. The largest mass extinction was well before we could blame human activity.

Does our awareness of a species and its chances of extinction mean that we have responsibility for its survival? If its natural preditors are increasing are we responsible for culling the predators?

When I went to slimbridge a few weeks ago we went around their duckery. They have a very rare asian duck there (I forget the species) that is rare because it is aggressive, to other birds, animals, and its own kind. Its low breeding rate is because this species would rather "make war not love" also coupled with a loss of habitat, if it does become extinct are we responsible?

Excellent questions walwyn, and ones that I think are worthy of a thread of their own.

I think we ("humanity") have to think seriously about the "responsibilities" of our stewardship.

We have these responsibilities (IMO) because we are the most advanced species on the planet (either by divine intervention or evolution... take your pick), and the only one with the power to destroy the majority (although I suspect not all) others.

Yes... extinction is a fact of life, and it is a matter that we must consider when intervene because we think we know best.

All this is a subject that I would be happy to suspend my pessimistic view for, to argue (I hope constructively) elsewhere if you wish, but if you'll forgive me for now, and for the purposes of this thread, I think any arguments would be moot, because whatever you and I might agree or disagree on won't make a ha'p'orth of difference to the people who wield the tools of power.

Sad about the imperial woodpecker. Let's hope the report is wrong.

Very thought provoking discussion. I guess at the end of the day if evolution is leading to the extinction of any species (not just birds) we should not interfere. It'll probably happen to humans one day.

I think man does have a responsibility to use the planet wisely. If we cause the extinction of species through our own greed than I think we are interfering unnaturally with the evolutionary process and we can and should do something about that. In many ways more (what we would call) primitive humans understood and lived in harmony with the natural world much better than we do.

I think these are some excellent questions to which there may be no good answers. If extinction is causes by "natural" processes, then perhaps we humans should not intervene, but then again, with the degree to which humans have altered this planet and every single habitat on it, how do we even know what processes are natural, i.e. would have occured in the absence of human interference? And how do we possibly foresee the long-term consequences of any human intervention, no matter how well-intentioned?

I hate to say it, but I agree with Birdman's pessimism on this subject. The world is, unfortunately, run by the economic interests of the few who are in power. Whether it's invading a foreign country or destroying a wildlife refuge in Alaska, the decisions are based on money. If people or wildlife are in the way, they will simply be swept to the side.

robinm said:

In many ways more (what we would call) primitive humans understood and lived in harmony with the natural world much better than we do.

Click to expand...

I know that robin didn't mean anything by this but I'd like to take the statement for a springboard into other questions on extinction.

We seem to feel that something has been lost whenever we hear of some 'primative tribe' coming up against the modern world. Whether it is Amazonians today, Papuans at the turn of the 20th century, Australian Aborigines and Native Americans in the 19th, or Incas in the 17th century.

It is as if we wish to preserve them in some zooalogical Eden, or museum. We seem to want to stop the march of history or to stop the evolutionary clock. Why is that?

I suppose, for the trekies in the audience, I'm really asking is the prime directive a sentimental crock?

Book of the day on such subjects Steps to an ecology of mind by Gregory Bateson.

OK, Walwyn, this is an excellent question and of course I am far from the person to answer it, but...

To me, the issue is not so much whether to "preserve" people like some diorama in a museum exhibit, to prevent them from changing whether they want to or not. It's more a matter of allowing them the self-determination to decide to what degree they want to maintain (or not maintain) a "traditional" way of life.

In so many cases, during the past few centuries, native, non-western peoples have been forced into the European-based western capitalist economic system--perhaps that is what many of them would have chosen anyway, or maybe not, but the problem is there never has been much choice in the matter. The Native Americans couldn't really tell Columbus, "no thanks, we're not interested, check back in a few hundred years".