The State - News from Feb. 18, 1987

The “cooing “ call of the yellow-billed cuckoo is nearly gone because of habitat loss, but an experimental $60,000 forestation project along the south fork of the Kern River may revive the bird’s shrinking numbers. The Arco Foundation has awarded $45,000 to the California Nature Conservancy to help restore portions of the river bank to the dense primeval cottonwood and willow forests that will support fading populations of the bird, a spokesman said. An additional $15,000 has been granted by the Compton Foundation Inc. Of an estimated 20,000 nesting pairs of cuckoos dwelling in 800,000 acres of lush woodlands along rivers in California before the arrival of settlers, fewer than 50 breeding pairs remain, a conservancy spokesman said. Ten of these occur at the conservancy’s 1,050-acre Kern River Preserve, 60 miles east of Bakersfield.