Red-headed Woodpecker - Conservation

Conservation

The Red-headed Woodpecker is a once common but declining bird species found in southern Canada and east-central United States. Consistent long-term population declines have resulted in Red-headed Woodpecker’s threatened status in Canada and several states in the US. This has led to an immediate need for conservation, which, as of yet, has been the focus of limited studies. Throughout most of its range it inhabits areas that have been heavily altered by humans. Factors suggested for Red-headed Woodpecker declines include: loss of overall habitat and, within habitats, standing dead wood required for nest sites, limitations of food supply, and possible nest-site competition with other cavity nesters such as European Starlings or Red-bellied Woodpeckers. Unfortunately few of these factors have been substantiated.

Of the 600 Canadian Important Bird Areas only seven report the Red-headed Woodpecker in their area: Cabot Head, Ontario on the Georgian Bay side of the tip of Bruce Peninsula; Carden Plain, Ontario east of Lake Simcoe; Long Point Peninsula and Marshes, Ontario along Lake Erie near London, Ontario; Point Abino, Ontario on Lake Erie near Niagara Falls; Port Franks Forested Dunes, Ontario northeast of Sarnia on Lake Huron; Kinosota/Leifur, Manitoba at the northwest side of Lake Manitoba south of the Narrows and east of Riding Mountain National Park; and along South Saskatchewan River from Empress, Alberta to Lancer Ferry in Saskatchewan.