CHARLESTON, S.C. — South Carolina is playing a key role in the resurgence of the American wood stork as a record number of nests were recorded in the state this year.
CHARLESTON, S.C. — South Carolina is playing a key role in the resurgence of the American wood stork as a record number of nests were recorded in the state this year.
Scientists say the recovery has been aided by plentiful rain, the state’s old coastal rice fields which provide perfect habitat and, surprisingly, an abundance of alligators.
Christy Hand, a wildlife biologist with the state Department of Natural Resources, said about 2,500 nests were counted across the state this year, most of them in the rural ACE Basin between Charleston and Beaufort. That number is about 450 more than the previous record year of 2004.
“We have had good numbers of nests in recent years but in addition the productivity of those nests has been very reliable,” said Hand whose office is in Green Pond, S.C., in the heart of the ACE Basin, the 1 million acres drained by the Ashepoo, Combahee and South Edisto rivers including everything from timberland and swamp to barrier islands and beaches.
While the federal recovery goal for wood storks is an average of 1.5 chicks per nest surviving until they can fly, South Carolina nests have been averaging 2.2 chicks per nest in recent years.
Scientists once worried the storks would become extinct largely because of development near the Everglades and other wetlands in Florida during the middle of the last century. They were placed on the endangered species list in the 1970s meaning they were on the edge of extinction.
The storks have since been able to expand their breeding areas into other states and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates there are now as many as 9,000 breeding adults. Last summer, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell visited Georgia to announce the storks were no longer endangered but are now considered threatened, a less-serious classification.
Hand said that the old South Carolina coastal rice field impoundments, now largely managed for water fowl, provide the perfect place with ample fish for wood storks to feed.
Alligators are important too, she said. One of the biggest predators of wood stork eggs are raccoons. If there are alligators near the isolated islands or wetlands where the wood storks nest on trees, the raccoons won’t come around.
While there was a record number of nests this year, that doesn’t mean 2015 will be the same.
“There isn’t a linear progression,” Hand said. “If we have a lot of rain leading up to the nesting season we will have plenty of water in the rookeries and the storks will usually nest in larger numbers. The water is important for the storks but it is also important for the alligators.”
The nesting season runs from early March through September.