Imperial Woodpecker - Decline and Probable Extinction

Decline and Probable Extinction

The Imperial Woodpecker is officially listed as Critically Endangered (possibly extinct) by the IUCN and BirdLife International. However, the last confirmed report was of one female in Durango in 1956 and the species is probably now extinct. The primary reason for its decline was loss of habitat, although the decline was also accelerated by over-hunting for use in folk medicine and because nestlings were considered a delicacy at least by the Tarahumara. Imperial Woodpeckers were stunning birds and as the species became rare many were apparently shot by people who had never encountered such a bird and wanted to get a closer look (Lammertink et al., 1996).

Given the near total destruction of its original habitat, and the lack of any confirmed sightings in over 50 years, most ornithologists believe the Imperial Woodpecker must be extinct. There are a handful of more recent, unconfirmed sightings (Mendenhall, 2005), the most recent of which closely followed the 2005 publication of the purported rediscovery of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. Lammertink et al. (1996), after extensively reviewing post-1956 reports, conclude that the species did indeed survive into the 1990s in the central part of its range but also consider a continued survival very unlikely. According to them, the population was always restricted in historic times, although the species was indeed present in maximum density before a catastrophic decline during the 1950s. The lack of good records from that time is apparently based more on lack of research than on actual rarity, but this seems to have changed radically only one decade later.

The Imperial Woodpecker is known from about 160 museum specimens and a single amateur film from 1956 depicting one bird climbing, foraging and flying. The film has been restored and released by Cornell University (Lammertink et al. 2011).