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associated with them, are essential to the survival of many wildlife species," said Justin Augustine, a San Francisco-based staff attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity.
• Over the past five years, the two have been pressing for protection of the bird through legal challenges to U.S. Forest Service logging projects, primarily in burned forests in the Sierra north and south of Lake Tahoe.
• A May 14 hearing is set before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in an ongoing legal battle between the Forest Service and the John Muir Project over salvage logging in woodpecker habitat where 250 homes burned in the 2007 Angora fire at

South Lake Tahoe, Calif.
• The California State Fish and Game Commission agreed in December to add the woodpecker to the list of species that are candidates for protection under the California Endangered Species Act. State Commissioner Michael Sutton said a two-year review of the bird's status is warranted because some Forest Service plans allow "100 percent salvage

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