Imperial Woodpecker

The imperial woodpecker is officially listed as "critically endangered (possibly extinct)" by the IUCN and BirdLife International. It was not historically a rare species within a suitable habitat, but the total population probably never numbered more than 8,000 individuals (Lammertink et al. 1996). Any remaining population is assumed to be tiny (numbering fewer than 50 mature individuals) based on the lack of confirmed records since 1956; analyses of remaining habitats indicate that no tracts remain which are large enough to support the species. The last confirmed record was from Durango in 1956, and the species is very likely now extinct. If they have gone extinct, it would have been due to habitat destruction and fragmentation combined with hunting. These factors are the reason why the species has not been seen in over 60 years, although there have been local reports of sightings. Researchers believe that their decline was also accelerated by active eradication campaigns conducted by logging interests, by over-hunting — for use in folk medicine, and because nestlings were considered a delicacy by the Tarahumara. It has been hunted for sport, food and for medicinal purposes over a long period of time, and feathers and bills were reportedly used in rituals by Tepheuana and Huichol tribes in the south of Durango. Additionally, imperial woodpeckers are stunning birds, and as the species became increasingly rare, many were apparently shot by people who had never encountered such a bird, and wanted to get a closer look. The habitat in which the imperial woodpecker was located was predominantly in coniferous forests (terrain levels at 2,700-2,900 m. elevation). The area in which they lived was abundant with large dead trees which could be linked to their extinction. The area had been cleared and logged multiple times by 2010. Increasing effort in conservation biology is being devoted to the analysis of the extinction risk as well as the search for the rare, long unseen, species. There are a handful of more recent, unconfirmed sightings, 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. Field research by Tim Gallagher and Martjan Lammertink, reported in Gallagher's 2013 book, found evidence — in the form of accounts by elderly residents in the bird's range, who saw imperial woodpeckers decades earlier, and who discussed their recollections with the researchers — that foresters working with Mexican logging companies in the 1950s told the local people that the woodpeckers were destroying valuable timber, and encouraged the people to kill the birds. As part of this campaign, the foresters gave the local residents poison to smear on trees that the birds foraged on. Because groups of imperial woodpeckers tended to feed on a single huge, dead, old-growth pine tree for as long as two weeks, applying poison to such a tree would be an effective way to wipe out a group of up to a dozen of these huge woodpeckers — and, perhaps, even to kill off succeeding groups of the birds that might move into the area, and be attracted to the same tree. Gallagher suspects that such a campaign of poisoning may be the key to the species' apparent catastrophic population crash in the 1950s, which has hitherto lacked a satisfactory explanation. A campaign of poisoning could well have killed whole groups of the bird in a short time. The premise of protecting valuable timber from the woodpeckers was, in fact, baseless. Imperial woodpeckers do not forage on, or excavate nest or roosting holes in live, healthy trees. In Gallagher's novel The Grail Bird (2006), he discusses how difficult the search is for the imperial woodpecker due to its dangerous location. In Mexico's Sierra Madre Occidental, there are major marijuana and opium poppy-growing regions that are patrolled by armed guards. The drug cartels often kill anyone who comes too close to their crops. 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. Gallagher's inspiration to search for the imperial woodpecker was the discovery of this 1956 film by dentist William Rhein, who made several trips to Mexico in search of the imperial woodpecker. This is the only known photographic record of the species.