After 30 years on the endangered species list, the American wood stork is getting a status upgrade. On a visit to Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge along the Georgia coast, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell announced the bird would now be considered only "threatened."
"It's a day for good news about an iconic bird from the Southeast that is doing a great job of recovering," Jewell said, though she cautioned: "There's still important work to do before we can propose to remove it from the list altogether."
In the early 1980s, before the species was federally protected, the bald wading bird that enjoys the marshes from Florida to North Carolina was predicted to go extinct within a decade. But a strong conservation effort on the part of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has helped the population recover.