Monitoring Black-backed Woodpeckers on Sierra Nevada National Forests

The Sierra Nevada is the most southerly portion of the range of the Black-backed Woodpecker (Picoides arcticus). Black-backed Woodpeckers are most abundant in the Sierra (and elsewhere in their range) in stands of recently fire-killed trees, where they forage heavily on wood-boring beetle larvae that inhabit the dead trees. The species has an uncanny ability to find and rapidly colonize patches of burned forest; then, as beetle populations decline during the decade or so after a fire, Black-backed Woodpeckers gradually abandon the area.

Left: An adult male Black-backed Woodpecker (photo copyrighted to C. Artuso).

Black-backed Woodpeckers’ strong affinity for stands of dead trees make their population vulnerable to excessive post-fire salvage logging and other management activities that might reduce the number of recently killed trees across the Sierra landscape. Accordingly, the USDA Forest Service has selected Black-backed Woodpecker as a Management Indicator Species for stands of burned forest. By tracking Black-backed Woodpecker populations throughout the national forests of the Sierra Nevada, the Forest Service hopes to ensure that its management activities will preserve sufficient fire-killed trees to meet the habitat needs of Black-backed Woodpecker and other wildlife species with an affinity for recently burned forest.

Beginning in spring 2008 the Forest Service and IBP have partnered to develop and implement a Black-backed Woodpecker monitoring program for ten national forests in the greater Sierra Nevada region. The program is providing Forest Service personnel with information needed to safeguard the Sierra Nevada’s Black-backed Woodpecker population.

Below: Listen to Black-backed Woodpecker nestlings begging inside their nest in a burnt Jeffrey Pine on Inyo National Forest. After about five seconds you can hear one of their parents drum on a nearby tree. Video courtesy of Dayna Mauer.

Click here to download the report from our 2008 pilot field season.

For more information, please contact Rodney Siegel.

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