This year is the 40th anniversary of the legislation creating The Endangered Species Act.
This Friday is “Endangered Species Day” – a day wildlife officials mark successes and challenges in preserving threatened and endangered species. Champions of the endangered Wood Stork said the move to down-list it to threatened may be premature, though.
Wood storks once nested in abundance in the ancient bald cypress trees in the 13 thousand acre Audubon Corkscrew Sanctuary in Collier County. But that’s changed. They’ve only nested there once in the last seven years.
Jason Lauritsen, the Sancutary Director said that’s because adjacent wetlands, where the birds foraged, have been developed. He said the last time they did nest, in 2009, was after heavy rains from Tropical Storm Faye.
“The result on the ground was significant flood, farms, parking lots peoples yards, were swelling with water and the fish were swarming throughout that connected hydrologic system,” he said. “It was perfect for wood storks. They did great.”
Federal wildlife officials are considering down-listing wood storks because they’ve had some success nesting in Georgia and South Carolina. But Lauritsen said how many those fledglings live to add to the population has not been documented. In a South Florida survey, only one out of 95 birds tracked lived to reproduce.
