John Arvin, head of the Texas IBWO search, posted this generally discouraging news on the Texas listserv today:
...speaking of Texas, another article from a few days back on the Big Thicket search here.
"Temple-Inland, the largest landowner of forested land in East Texas, has
announced a sell-off of their land holdings in the region. Why is this bad
news? Because continuous forests, both bottomland (especially) and upland pine
will be fragmented into thousands of little parcels as people obtain land for
their weekend homes. There are few conservation dollars available to pick up
some of the more important tracts. Birds and other organisms associated with
large tracts of intact forest will be especially affected. So, we can forget
about the (admittedly slight) chance that Ivory-billed Woodpecker might once
again inhabit extensive tracts of bottomland forest. Existing preserved tracts
are insufficient to support a viable population of that species and others like
it (e.g. Louisiana Black Bear). The almost extinct Longleaf Pine ecosystem of
the uplands is also in peril, along with its specialty species (Red-cockaded
Woodpecker, Bachman's Sparrow, Brown-headed Nuthatch). Habitat fragmentation is
almost as damaging as outright habitat loss for many species. Sorry to be the
bearer of bad tidings."
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