The red-cockaded woodpecker is an endangered species of the American Southeast, numbering approximately 15,000.38 The woodpecker makes its nests in old dead or dying pines, and one of its foods is the pine bark beetle. To conserve this species of woodpecker, these pines must be preserved. But the old pines are home to the beetles, which are pests to the trees and damage them for commercial logging. This presents an intriguing problem:
How can we maintain the wood pecker and its food which includes the pine bark beetle and also maintain productive forests? Although the gray wolf was not endangered globally there were more than 60,000 in Canada and Alaska it was one of the first animals listed as endangered under the 1973 Endangered Species Act. As required, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service developed a plan for recovery that included protection of the existing population and reintroduction of wolves to wilderness areas.
Power was restored within 24 hours to most places, but the event was an energy shock that demonstrated our dependence on aging power distribution systems and centralized electric power generation. Seven presidents of the United States since the mid 1970s have attempted to address energy problems and how to become independent of foreign energy sources.