According to the Endangered Species Act of 1973, endangered is "any species which is in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range." Apart from the cockaded woodpecker, the only other woodpecker species considered endangered in the United States is the ivory-billed woodpecker. The IUCN Red List of Endangered Species lists the cockaded woodpecker as vulnerable, rather than endangered, due to its recent recovery. Vulnerable refers to species that are likely to become endangered.
Cockaded woodpeckers are endangered because their actual populations are much smaller than the original ones. The estimated population of cockaded woodpeckers at the arrival of the European colonizers was 920,000 to 1.5 million groups or families. In 1979, the number of groups was about 4,000. In 2003, the number of families increased to more than 5,500 across 11 states. As of January 2008, groups of cockaded woodpeckers number 6,000, according to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Despite this stable recovery, populations of cockaded woodpeckers are still small and under threat of extinction.
Habitat loss and fragmentation are the main threats to the survival of cockaded woodpeckers. Cockaded woodpeckers lived and nested in old, open pine forests, which covered about 92 million acres at the time of European colonization, but less than 3 million acres remain as a result of intensive logging. Cockaded woodpeckers excavate cavities in living pine trees to build their nests. Also, younger, smaller pines that replaced the old ones generally do not contain many parasitic insects, which are an important part of the woodpecker's diet.
Several activities are part of the red-cockaded woodpecker recovery plan, which is an initiative of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Actions to save the species include translocating young females to groups lacking a female, thus increasing reproduction rates, and constructing artificial cavities to be used as nests. Also important for the recovery of red-cockaded woodpeckers is the preservation of older longleaf pine trees, their original and favorite habitat.