During the Sedona City Council June 25 hearing on the Oak Creek Heritage Lodge, appellant Lynn Thomas claimed, “This area is designated critical habitat of two threatened species by the Endangered Species Act,” the narrowheaded garter snake and the yellow-billed cuckoo. “This area contains the lower Oak Creek important bird area, where the western yellow-billed cuckoos are identified as a breeding bird … Those trees that I mentioned earlier? That’s where that bird breeds. Taking down those trees can and will impact the ability of that bird to breathe.”

While the western North American population of the yellow-billed cuckoo is considered to be declining, the species is classified as “least concern” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. It breeds primarily east of the Mississippi River and overwinters in Brazil and South America.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated certain areas of Arizona as critical habitat for the western population of the yellow-billed cuckoo in April 2021, including Area 8, which extends “from the State Highway 179 bridge within the city of Sedona in Coconino County, Arizona, downstream to the confluence with the Verde River in Yavapai County.” The proposed Heritage Lodge is upstream from the bridge and wholly outside the protected zone.

The rule also states that the FWS issued the designation because the area was “considered to have been occupied” by the cuckoo at the time of listing, and that the rule “only applies to the [designated population segment] and not to the yellow-billed cuckoo as a whole.”