Don't mind about the title. I've just read in an Argentinian newspaper that a group of people from North Carolina cut down many trees in order to avoid their properties becoming "protected areas", since woodpeckers are a "endagered specie" AND the US Fish & wildlife service released a new map with areas that are now considered to be protected areas.
I dont know if I'm clear, but can anyone explain this to me? I mean, they cut down trees to scare away an already endangered specie? I say wtf!?
That's all.

Yeah well I can imagine that if I was a property owner who was at risk of losing the rights to use my own property in the manner that I desired I would be tempted to do something to encourage the birds to move elsewhere too. If nothing else, the second that protected area status goes up the property value is pretty much guaranteed to fall.

Well people here in Finland shoot the birds if they're annoyed enough, no matter if the birds are endangered or not. That's finnish environmentalism for you.

Of course the officials try to find out who shot that eagle or destroyed that nest every now and then, but most of the perpetrators will almost never get caught.

An' you get a lot of shooting at wolves and bears every few years, and then they start wondering what's wrong with the bear for it to attack a human after it's been wounded. Dumb finnish equivalents for hillbillies.

I just can't get the image out of my head of little odd-shaped, green, wooden creatures shooting lasers at the inhabitants of earth (a la Mars Attacks)....

Maybe this isn't that of a big issue, but I thought if they destroy their nests that's like destroying their habitat and probably one or two generations of birds, which will reduce their chances, and also sets up another problem with is making a new nest and stuff somewhere else. And where's peta or greenpeace, I wonder.
Another way of fixing this issue was mentioned in the article: since the real problem aren't woodpeckers but the burocratic delay for the building permissions, then speed up the process, that's all. Instead of wasting money cutting down trees, all those owners could've sent a letter or something complaining about it. Like it 'd have worked. But they should've tried it, at first.
PS: woodpecker from mars is an instrumental song by faith no more, and I was listening to it while I posted the original message.