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The yellow-billed cuckoo is sometimes called the raincrow because its song is often heard just before thunderstorms or summer showers. But this rare bird raises its voice less and less often in eastern North America and has been entirely eradicated from most of its riparian habitat west of the Continental Divide. If its habitat is not soon protected, the cuckoo and its rain song may very well disappear forever from western North America.
ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT PROFILE
PROTECTION STATUS: Not listed; candidate species
PETITIONED: 1998
YEAR PLACED ON LIST: Candidate 2001
RANGE: West of the Continental Divide
THREATS: Loss, degradation, and fragmentation of riparian habitat due to widespread logging, grazing, water diversion and pumping, agribusiness, and urban sprawl
POPULATION TREND: The western subspecies of yellow-billed cuckoo has declined precipitously west of the Continental Divide and is now extinct in Alaska, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and northernmost California.
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SAVING THE YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOO
In western riparian areas from Canada to northern Mexico, the yellow-billed cuckoo was once considered common. Currently, 95 percent of western yellow-billed cuckoos have been extirpated due to logging, water diversion, and suburban sprawl. As few as 40 breeding pairs may be all that remain in California. In 1998 the Center for Biological Diversity stepped in and petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to grant endangered species protection to the cuckoo.
Though that 1998 petition process did not materially change much for the cuckoo, it did help fund research into the genetic characteristics of the species, which ultimately led to a Fish and Wildlife Service determination that western cuckoos should be treated as a “distinct population segment,” though taxonomic debate is still ongoing about the western cuckoo’s status as a subspecies.
In 2000, the Center and allies filed a suit to force a listing decision, and the Service determined in 2001 that the yellow-billed cuckoo’s listing was “warranted but precluded.” This meant that though a threatened listing was scientifically justified, the agency would not grant protection due to the fact that it was making "expeditious progress" on "higher priority" listings — bureaucratic rhetoric typical of Bush administration stall-and-delay tactics. Instead of being designated an endangered species, the yellow-billed cuckoo was placed on the "warranted but precluded" list without any legal protection, where it remains today.
The Center continues to work to ensure the yellow-billed cuckoo will receive the endangered species protections it so desperately needs.
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Contact: Kierán Suckling
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