Critical habitat designated for Yellow-billed Cuckoo

[Laura Bies]

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Late last month, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service formally designated 298,845 acres as critical habitat for the western population of the Yellow-billed Cuckoo (Coccyzus americanus). The final designation included 39% less critical habitat than the February 2020 proposal, and includes areas in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, New Mexico, Texas, and Utah.

The final critical habitat designation focused on “selected areas used for breeding,” according to the USFWS, and did not include all habitat where the birds breed, feed, migrate, or and stop over. The February 2020 proposal would have included 493,665 acres across seven Western states as critical habitat for the bird. An earlier proposal, published in 2014, would have included 546,335 acres. 

According to the USFWS, the primary threats to Yellow-billed Cuckoos are habitat loss and degradation from altered watercourses, livestock overgrazing, encroachment from agriculture and conversion of native habitat to nonnative vegetation.

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