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White-backed Woodpecker

The White-backed Woodpecker needs old forests and deadwood: investigation and promotion of a rare woodpecker

The White-backed Woodpecker returned to Switzerland from the east in the late 1990s and has since been slowly spreading westwards and northwards. Together with partners in Eastern Switzerland, Vorarlberg and Liechtenstein, the Swiss Ornithological Institute is running a project over a period of several years to investigate the habitat requirements of this woodpecker species in managed forests. The findings of this research are to be used to derive forest management measures that are adapted to the White-backed Woodpecker.

Domain Conservation
Unit Forest Habitats
Topic Habitat Promotion, Ecology
Habitat forest
Project start 2014
Project status ongoing
Project management Michael Lanz
Project region Appenzell Outer-Rhodes, Appenzell Inner-Rhodes, Glarus, Grisons, St Gallen, Schwyz, Zurich, Liechtenstein, Europe

Project team members

Betroffene Vogelarten

Bird species
White-backed Woodpecker
The White-backed Woodpecker is the largest and rarest of the black and white woodpeckers. Since a few years only, individual breeding pairs have been observed in the east of Switzerland. Because of its special habitat requirements – natural forests with a great number of dying and dead trees – th...
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Other resources
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Habitat selection of an old-growth forest specialist in managed forests
Avinews
Was macht ein «Urwaldspecht» im Wirtschaftswald? (in German)
Forest habitats link
Unit

Forest habitats

Our Forest team is committed to preserving and promoting Switzerland’s forest habitats for birds. We focus on training and continuing education in forestry, ensure knowledge is transferred into practice and contribute to reducing the deficits of waste wood and dead wood as well as species-specific, special and rare habitats through specific funding projects and land conservation in forests.

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