Foraging habitat of pileated woodpeckers in relation to a managed landscape on the Hoopa Valley reservation, Northwestern California

The Pileated woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus) is associated with older forest stages—larger diameter trees and snags for roosting, nesting and foraging, but they also use managed forests. The Hoopa Reservation is approximately 37,000 ha of mostly forested area with an array of seral stages. The Hoopa Tribe manages timber, and explicitly provides habitat for woodpeckers according to the Tribe’s Forest Management Plan (FMP). No formal study has assessed woodpecker habitat at Hoopa, and habitat has not been well described in this region. I captured eleven woodpeckers and outfitted them with transmitters between 2009 and 2014, and I used resource selection functions to examine foraging habitat selection. I compared used and available habitat, buffered with median telemetry error for all woodpeckers, then applied logistic regression to fit models to habitat covariates. Woodpeckers selected habitat near creeks, in areas with comparatively dense vegetation in the layers 1-8 m (ground) and \u3e32-72 m (upper canopy). The birds also showed some selection of old growth and avoidance of the stem exclusion seral stages. Home ranges averaged 213 ha (138-324 ha), which is smaller than most home ranges previously reported. Results of this study help inform the Tribe’s current timber management practices and future updates to the FMP, and I suggest that current timber practices are generally favorable for pileated woodpecker habitat. I recommend special attention be paid to the recruitment of snags via reintroduction of fire on the landscape to promote snag initiation, as well as diversification of managed forest stands that are a legacy of BIA management through habitat improvement