Population Status
It is not known how many Woodcock were present in eastern North America before European settlement. Colonial agriculture, with its patchwork of family farms and open-range livestock grazing, probably supported healthy Woodcock populations.
The Woodcock population remained high during the early and mid-twentieth century, after many family farms were abandoned as people moved to urban areas, and cropfields and pastures grew up in brush. In recent decades, those formerly brushy acres have become middle-aged and older forest, where Woodcock rarely venture, or they have been covered with buildings and other human developments. Because its population has been declining, the American Woodcock is considered a "species of greatest conservation need" in many states, triggering research and habitat-creation efforts in an attempt to boost Woodcock populations.
Population trends have been measured through springtime Breeding Bird Surveys and, in the northern breeding range, springtime singing-ground surveys. Data suggest that the Woodcock population has fallen rangewide by an average of 1.1 percent yearly over the last four decades.
Read more about this topic: American Woodcock
Famous quotes containing the words population and/or status:
“[Madness] is the jail we could all end up in. And we know it. And watch our step. For a lifetime. We behave. A fantastic and entire system of social control, by the threat of example as effective over the general population as detention centers in dictatorships, the image of the madhouse floats through every mind for the course of its lifetime.”
—Kate Millett (b. 1934)
“[In early adolescence] she becomes acutely aware of herself as a being perceived by others, judged by others, though she herself is the harshest judge, quick to list her physical flaws, quick to undervalue and under-rate herself not only in terms of physical appearance but across a wide range of talents, capacities and even social status, whereas boys of the same age will cite their abilities, their talents and their social status pretty accurately.”
—Terri Apter (20th century)