The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service granted the yellow-billed cuckoo protection under the Endangered Species Act following a 2011 speed agreement with the Center for Biological Diversity.
The agency proposed 500,000 acres of land in nine western states become designated as critical habitat for the dwindling bird population. The cuckoo is crucial because it is one of the only creatures that can eat spiny caterpillars such as tent caterpillars. It boasts a "long tail with flashy white markings." The bird can be found in states spanning from California to Colorado.
"Yellow-billed cuckoos were once common along rivers all over the West, but because of our poor treatment of western rivers, they're now found in just a handful of places," said Noah Greenwald, the Center's endangered species director. "With just a little more care, we can restore the rivers the cuckoo needs to survive, benefiting not just this unique songbird, but hundreds of other plants and animals and people too."
The yellow-billed cuckoo, or "rain crow," is known for singing before storms and breeding in streamside forests of cottonwood and willow. These crucial breeding grounds are being destroyed by human methods such as "dams, livestock grazing, water withdrawals, river channelization and other factors."
In 2011, the Center and the Fish and Wildlife Service reached a legal settlement to speed the protection decisions for all the animals on the candidate list. Since then 138 plants and animals have received protection have received protection as a result of this agreement and an additional 11 have been proposed for protection.
"The petition to protect yellow-billed cuckoos was the first I ever worked on, back in 1998," Greenwald said. "I had no idea then that getting protection for this severely imperiled songbird would take 16 years, but I'm glad it finally has a great chance of recovering."
