Natural forests on the installation are important for providing a realistic training environment, and by maintaining the forest, base managers felt they were doing a good job of sustaining the red-cockaded woodpeckers. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), which co-administers the Endangered Species Act, felt otherwise and in 1990 issued a “jeopardy opinion.” 1That regulatory opinion maintained that training activities on the base were having a detrimental impact on the long-term survival of the woodpeckers. As a result of this Fish and Wildlife Service order, a number of training restrictions were required to buffer the woodpeckers from training activities thought to be harmful, and in 1994 these restrictions were codified in management guidelines.
Restrictions on training activities at Fort Bragg and other Southeastern military installations provoked high-level consternation, including calls from some for congressional action. To defuse the situation, the Secretary of the Army and the Secretary of the Interior directed their respective staffs to work together and devise a strategy that would both support recovery of the woodpecker consistent with the Endangered Species Act and enable the Army to continue training its troops. A joint Department of Defense/Fish and Wildlife Service team was assembled under the leadership of a respected infantry officer and charged with tackling the issue.
What was needed to sustain and increase red-cockaded woodpecker numbers was already fairly well known to wildlife biologists and included a combination of proactive habitat management and creation of artificial nesting cavities. While a principal focus of the response to the jeopardy opinion was restrictions on training activities, the team recognized that a lack of proactive habitat management was probably the greatest factor limiting the bird’s survival and recovery. By its regulatory nature, however, the Endangered Species Act is better suited to limiting potentially harmful activities than promoting beneficial ones, and the team was challenged to create a strategy that balanced these approaches.
When a federal agency seeks to take an action that might affect a listed species, it must
send a “biological assessment” to one of the two Endangered Species Act administrator
bodies. If the administrators feel the proposed action could put a listed species at risk of
extinction, they can issue a “jeopardy opinion,” which carries the force of a decision. For
more on federal agency consultations under the Endangered Species Act, see
https://www.fws.gov/endangered/what-we-do/consultations-overview.html.
Fortunately, the type of open understory forest habitat best suited for the woodpecker was also considered by military trainers to be an ideal cover type for providing realistic training experiences. This concordance in habitat opened up a host of opportunities for meeting mutual goals, and fire was key to maintaining suitable conditions for both. Healthy longleaf pine forests depend on frequent but low-intensity fires. As a result, prescribed burns are one of the key management tools for maintaining and restoring Fort Bragg’s natural ecosystems, benefiting not only the woodpecker, but also a host of other rare species on the installation.
Next Page: Mission Critical Thinking
Author
Bruce Stein, Ph.D., Chief Scientist and Associate Vice President
National Wildlife Federation
Balancing Mission and Biodiversity at Fort Bragg Sections
Balancing Mission and Biodiversity at Fort Bragg
Longleaf Pine: A Declining Ecosystem