Target: US Fish and Wildlife Director, Martha Williams
Goal: Ensure any remaining woodpeckers have protection until extinction can be confirmed.
The Ivory-Billed Woodpecker has been thought to have gone extinct for years. This is leading US Fish and Wildlife Service officials to consider classifying the bird as such. However, the bird’s complete extinction has yet to be unequivocally confirmed. There have been a number of unconfirmed and controversial sightings of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker over the years, and because of this many environmental and indigenous groups are encouraging US Fish and Wildlife Services to hold off on declaring the bird extinct.
Ivory-Billed Woodpeckers are the largest woodpecker species native to the United States and have striking features, including black and white plumage and a red head feather. They were driven to the brink of extinction because of logging in their natural forested swamp habitat in the US’s South East. Once an animal has been officially declared extinct, no more resources are provided towards its preservation, and laws are not geared toward its protection anymore.
Until explicit confirmation of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker’s extinction can be made, it doesn’t make sense to remove the legal protections and financial resources available for its preservation. Any woodpeckers that may remain are incredibly vulnerable and require all the resources they can get. Sign below to call on US Fish and Wildlife Services Director, Martha Williams, to delay declaring the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker extinct.
PETITION LETTER:
Dear Director Williams,
Even though the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker has been thought to be extinct, for years people have been making unconfirmed sightings of the bird. Until the woodpecker’s extinction can be explicitly confirmed, it is irresponsible to take away legal and financial resources protecting any of these vulnerable birds that may remain.
Please do everything in your power to make sure that the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker is not declared extinct prematurely.
Sincerely,
[Your Name Here]
Photo Credit: Peter E.
Environmental protections should not end for the Ivory-Billed. We need to keep the protections in place. By doing this, we will no doubt be saving other species as well.