Cerulean Warbler Background and Recovery

The cerulean warbler, once a common sight in the forests of the eastern United States, is vanishing at an alarming rate. Over the past four decades, the cerulean’s numbers have declined by seventy percent. Between 1966 and 1999, it declined an average of 4% per year throughout its eastern breeding range. Within the species core range (Midwest and Southeast) the total population decline is closer to eighty percent.

This dramatic drop is due, in large part, to habitat fragmentation and destruction of its breeding range in the Mississippi and Ohio River valleys, southern Missouri and Wisconsin, eastern Kentucky, eastern Ohio, and West Virginia.

Within its breeding range, this blue and white warbler requires large tracts of mature deciduous forest, including open woods with tall trees and relatively little undergrowth, often found near bottomlands and rivers. Commercial logging, agriculture and development within the species’ range are leading to the loss of mature deciduous forests, especially along stream valleys. The resulting fragmentation and isolation of forests and loss of key tree species, such as oaks and sycamores, is a leading cause of dramatic population reduction.

In addition, mountaintop mining in key habitat areas has been identified as one of the most serious threats to the species. Mining practices have been found to be particularly devastating to cerulean populations, as the species’ preferred habitat types – namely steep slopes and mountain ridges – are destroyed. This problem continues to intensify. It is estimated that currently proposed and permitted mines may directly eliminate one fifth of the cerulean’s remaining population.