A bird species that inhabits Mississippi’s coastal region is no longer considered endangered.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Monday that it had removed the wood stork from the federal list of endangered and threatened wildlife. The wood stork was originally federally protected under the Endangered Species Act in 1984, as it was on the brink of extinction. At that point, its population had plummeted by over 75% since the 1930s.
But now, officials say the wood stork, the only stork species that breeds in the U.S., is thriving. Currently, the species has an estimated breeding population between 10,000 and 14,000 nesting pairs across roughly 100 colony sites. Wood storks now inhabit the coastal plains of Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. They have also adapted to new nesting areas, moving north into coastal salt marshes, flooded rice fields, floodplain forest wetlands, and human-created wetlands.
“The wood stork’s recovery is a real conservation success thanks to a lot of hard work from our partners,” U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Brian Nesvik said. “The Trump administration is working quickly to remove federal protections from species that no longer need them, and I’m proud that the wood stork is another example of that.”
As part of the wood stork’s delisting as an endangered species, federal officials will keep up with the population for the next decade to make sure the recovery is maintained.
“These delistings reflect successful conservation partnerships and the administration’s focus on results-driven wildlife management that returns recovered species to state and tribal stewardship,” a release from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reads. “The Trump administration continues to advance policies that strengthen species recovery while reducing unnecessary federal restrictions.”