Today, National Audubon Society responded to news from U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, who announced the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) decision to reclassify the previously endangered Wood Stork to threatened status. This decision comes in response to substantially increased population and nesting numbers in Georgia and South Carolina, and north of its historic Corkscrew Swamp and Everglades portion of its range.
“Audubon scientists and staff celebrate the increased Wood Stork numbers, but we remain disappointed that the Service has ignored our calls for caution based on fundamental questions of science over stork recovery. This action abandons the need for recovery of storks and wading birds in the species’ historic heartland of Corkscrew Swamp and the Greater Everglades,” said Audubon Florida Director of Wildlife Conservation Julie Wraithmell.
Audubon owns and manages the 13,000 acre Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary near Naples, Fla., which has for over 50 years hosted the nation’s largest nesting rookery for Wood Storks. Audubon scientists have been monitoring annual nesting and habitat conditions since 1958, as well as conducting research, currently led by Sanctuary Director and Wood Stork biologist, Jason Lauritsen. These data and research results indicate a loss of critical shallow foraging wetlands of up to 80 percent in the 30 kilometer radius of core foraging area around the Corkscrew rookery. This has resulted in reductions of nesting productivity from about 4,500 chicks on average each year in the 1960’s, to less than 950 now.
These same wetland losses have occurred, and continue to occur, across the Greater Everglades region due to state and federal regulatory inadequacies, threatening the South Florida populations of storks and wading birds. Audubon is working with permitting agencies to correct these problems, centering on tracking the value of shallow foraging wetlands, but results are still pending.
According to Lauritsen, “Wood Storks are a key indicator species for progress on Everglades Restoration, and their regional status also figures heavily in whether the species can ultimately recover. Reclassification of the Wood Stork ignores the ongoing threat of continuing major wetland losses from development permitting in South Florida, undermining billions of dollars being spent to restore the Everglades.”
The threats to Corkscrew and the Everglades are combined with uncertainty about the future sustainability of newer and numerous smaller rookeries of Wood Storks expanding north from the historic South Florida population base. Because many of these colonies are located among coastal marshes in Georgia and South Carolina, sea level rise and climate change pose substantial risks to continued population growth and sustainability. There are also fundamental questions about the survival rates of Wood Stork young, for which the Service has little data. Also, Audubon asserts that the Service must ascertain the levels of long term protection for wetland habitats around these northern colonies. While the Service has cited the species recovery benefits of 315,000 acres of wetland restoration in the Wood Stork’s range, Audubon has not seen any information assuring these gains were acreages of actual new wetlands, versus acres only preserved, merely cleared of exotics, or restoration only planned and not realized yet.
The eventual recovery of the Wood Stork throughout its North American range is a priority for Audubon. Audubon celebrates the increase in nesting effort in the northern portion of the Wood Stork range, but we believe the Service has ignored fundamental questions about the sustainability of the gains.
“Audubon is committed to reduce the areas of risk we've identified by continuing to support sound science, work towards habitat protection, acquisition and restoration and advocate for needed regulatory reforms. With the combined efforts of like-minded conservation organizations we are hopeful the gains made since their listing in 1984 can be maintained, and recovery of the species will be essentially supported by the revived large rookeries of Corkscrew Swamp and the Greater Everglades,” said Lauritsen.
