3.13.3 Birds
The Bird Taxa Team reevaluated 50 bird species for consideration of conservation need, knowledge gap, and management need/concern priorities. In some cases, minor revisions have been made to incorporate state or federal listing status changes. State listing status changes included in this update were effective in October 2017 (NCAC 2017). The reevaluation also resulted in changes to the Knowledge Gap and Management Needs/Concerns priority lists. All Taxa Team reevaluation results and changes to the priority species lists are provided in a table in Appendix GA1-2. The Taxa Team also reevaluated responsibility species that are based on global and state importance. Global responsibility species are those that occur in North Carolina in the periphery of their range, and are therefore rare in the state. N.C. global responsibility species are those species for which 8% or more of the global breeding or wintering population occurs in North Carolina and the ranking evaluation score is within the 50% percentile. After considering updated knowledge about these populations, nine species were determined to no longer be considered a conservation priority based on responsibility status and were removed from the SGCN priority list. These species are Snow Goose, Evening Gr osbeak, Common Raven, Brewer’s Blackbird, Merlin, Herring Gull, Lincoln’s Sparrow, Nashville Warbler, and Clay -colored Sparrow. Current naming conventions are established by the American Ornithological Society (AOS) and published in a check-list of North American birds (Auk 2019). Several changes to scientific names for North Carolina species have been incorporated as determined by the Bird Taxa Team. The most notable naming convention change made by AOS is for Red-cockaded Woodpecker ( Picoides borealis ), with the current genus being listed by AOS (Chesser et al. 2018) as Dryobates borealis . Because Red-cockaded Woodpecker is a federally listed species, the Bird Taxa Team recommends retaining the genus name Picoides until the USFWS publishes a revision to the scientific name. In October 2019, the USFWS announced that federal listing is warranted for the Eastern Black Rail ( Laterallus jamaicensis jamaicensis ) and has proposed listing it as Threatened with a rule issued under section 4(d) of the Endangered Species Act (USFWS 2019b). The proposed listing also includes designation of Critical Habitat that covers approximately 738 river miles in 16 management units in North Carolina. The USFWS completed a species status assessment for the Black-capped Petrel ( Pterodroma hasitata ) in 2018 that resulted in the species being proposed for protection under the ESA as a threatened species. Black-capped Petrel is a coastal pelagic bird associated with warm Gulf Stream waters of the Atlantic Ocean. It is one of the pelagic birds included in the 2015 NCWAP (see Chapter 3.11) as knowledge gap species based on conservation concerns identified by the
3A1- 4
2020 Addendum NC Wildlife Action Plan
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