THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, March 18, 1995 TAG: 9503180323
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines
The Army is in a faceoff with the tiny, rare red-cockaded woodpecker at Fort Bragg, N.C.
As an endangered species, it hampers Army maneuvers in parts of the fort's 150,000 acres.
Fewer than 10,000 of the species remain in the South. Northern outposts are in Southside Virginia. The species has traits that set it apart.
Most woodpeckers nest in holes in dead trees. The red-cockaded variety bores a home in pines still living but infected by a disease that rots and softens the heart.
It also drills small holes in the bark around the entrance to the cavity. Resin oozes from the holes and leaves sticky barriers that repel snakes. Patches of pitch on the trunks denote the cavities.
The woodpeckers live in colonies. The kin of the mated pairs - aunts and uncles - join in feeding insects to the fledglings.
Ornithologist David Hughes of Portsmouth notes that modern lumbering practices don't allow pines to grow to a height that would make them useful to the woodpeckers.
The bird has been on the endangered species list since 1972. When environmental groups threatened to sue in 1990 under the Endangered Species Act, the Army ordered tank brigades to steer clear of 430 woodpeckers' nesting sites.
Sen. Jesse Helms wants Fort Bragg exempted from the Endangered Species Act. ``Let's get you an extra appropriation for some sunflower seed,'' he said Friday.
Retired Gen. Carl Stiner, who directed Special Operations Forces in the Persian Gulf War and commanded the 18th Airborne Corps at Fort Bragg from 1988 to 1990, said it was ``unconscionable'' to send troops into the field without fully training them.
The Associated Press reports that he told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee that the restrictions curtail tank gunnery and helicopter gunship practice. Readiness of Army units at Bragg has declined since 1990, he said.
Maj. Gen. Richard E. Davis, now at Fort Bragg, said the woodpecker protection policy has created ``bad habits'' in war games, as commanders peruse the map of woodpecker sites for clues on where opposing forces might go.
``It has negatively impacted training,'' Davis said. ``I do not think it has significantly degraded the readiness of the corps. We have learned to cope with the red-cockaded woodpecker.''
Committee Chairman John Chafee noted that the law allows the defense secretary to override the species protection if he believes it harms national security. Three defense secretaries have refused to do so.
When George Frampton, an assistant interior secretary, said the goal was to have woodpecker pairs breed each year for years, Helms asked, ``What do you do, peep into their bedrooms?'' Frampton retorted, ``This administration certainly believes in keeping out of people's bedrooms, and that includes red-cockaded woodpeckers.'' ILLUSTRATION: The red-cockaded woodpecker has been endangered since 1972.
by CNB