An Unlikely Partnership

On an army base in North Carolina, soldiers and scientists have turned their conflict over an endangered species into collaboration — and conservation success. The base was once one of the few remaining patches of long-leaf pine habitat for the endangered red cockaded woodpeckers (or RCWs), which were at one point reduced to just 4,000 breeding pairs.

The partnership between the military and environmentalists was not an easy one, but the determination paid off. Through observing the remaining RCWs and the surrounding forest, the research team realized a key ingredient that made the Fort’s forest ecosystem so successful: the fires sparked by the military’s munition tests.