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CRAIG PITTMANThe downgraded status may foreshadow a battle in November over the manatee.
PENSACOLA BEACH - For a small bird, the red-cockaded woodpecker is causing an uproar.
Despite objections from woodpecker experts and environmental activists, a sharply divided state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission voted Wednesday to ease protection for the bird.
The 4-3 vote changed the status of the red-cockaded woodpecker from "threatened" merely to a "species of special concern."
The change means companies will face fewer hurdles if they destroy the bird's habitat. Timber and development interests say the bird is on the rebound, so it doesn't need the higher protection it has enjoyed for decades.
Ken Haddad, executive director of the conservation commission, warned that the vote will be seen by the public as a sign "that we're not taking this species as seriously as we should."
The vote is a preview of a battle in November, Haddad said, when the wildlife commission is due to make a similar decision on the manatee.
The three commissioners on the losing side of Wednesday's vote wanted to delay a decision to explore complaints about the state's listing system.
"If we do something and it's incorrect, it's going to be hard to undo it," warned Commissioner John Rood.
But commission chairman Edwin Roberts said it was time to "bite the bullet and move forward."
The vote went against the recommendation not only of Haddad but also the Florida Ornithological Society and a bevy of environmental groups concerned that the change will make it easier for loggers and developers to destroy the bird's habitat.
The state Department of Forestry, the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council and the South Florida Water Management District also said the change suggests the bird no longer needs protection.
The bird's status as a federally protected endangered species will not change.
Steve Godley, a biologist who works for developers in the state Department of Transportation, praised the commission's decision as "outstanding."
There are about 14,000 of the 8-inch birds left in the United States, and the largest group, numbering about 4,000, is scattered throughout Florida.
They once ranged as far north as New Jersey and as far west as Texas. Since the first white settlers arrived, though, the red-cockaded woodpecker has lost 97 percent of its range and population.
The problem is their choice of a home. They live in cavities they spend years excavating in mature pine trees, particularly longleaf pines. Their old holes become homes for other animals, from bees to screech owls.
But logging and development have wiped out most of the South's longleaf forests and put a stop to the periodic fires that are necessary to maintaining other kinds of healthy pines.
Efforts to revive the population, including building cavities and transplanting birds between forests, began to bear fruit in the 1990s. Still, federal wildlife officials do not expect to remove the woodpecker from their endangered list before 2075.
The state has a different listing process, created in 1999 to quell complaints from state lawmakers. The new approach set strict numerical requirements and called for consideration of economic and social impacts of protecting animals and plants.
The listings were based on guidelines adopted by the World Conservation Union, but the commission changed the names of the categories. The world union's "critically endangered" category became "endangered" and the world union's "endangered" became "threatened."
The architect of the World Conservation Union guidelines, University of California at San Diego biology professor Russell Lande, last month wrote that making those changes "contradicts both common sense and plain English."
Federal officials say the numerical requirements in the state's listing guidelines are so strict that they would no longer allow listing the Northern right whale, which has a population of just 300.
The state agreed last year to set up a panel to review the guidelines and see if they need changing. So far, though, the panel is "split down the middle," said one member, Manley Fuller of the Florida Wildlife Federation.
The commission also approved a lengthy management plan for protecting the woodpecker which Fuller warned relies heavily on forming partnerships with private landowners and the government.