BOILING SPRING LAKES - The sharp chirps of the endangered red-cockaded woodpeckers and the whine of chain saws sound discordantly in this coastal community of old pine forests.

Since word got around this spring that owners could face problems selling land or building houses where the birds lived, people have been rushing to clear undeveloped lots of pine trees and yanking the woodpecker welcome mat.

More than anywhere else in North Carolina, Boiling Spring Lakes is a place where the coastal development boom and the federal Endangered Species Act have collided.

"People are just afraid a bird might fly in and make a nest and their property is worth nothing," said Joan Kinney, mayor of Boiling Spring Lakes in Brunswick County. "It is causing a tremendous amount of clear-cutting."

The sight of wooded lots scraped bare to the white sandy soil is harming the appearance of the community, leaders say. So while town officials figure out what to do about the woodpecker, they are now considering a ban on clear-cutting.

Wildlife officials notified city leaders six months ago that they were concerned about the rapid development and loss of mature longleaf pines that the birds prefer. They said the city could be liable for violating federal law if it issued building permits for lots with nests.

The woodpecker's status as an endangered species requires special measures to try to prevent its extinction and restore its population, wildlife officials say. That's the law. Wildlife officials gave the town maps pinpointing woodpecker nests. No building or tree cutting is allowed within 200 feet of a nest tree without a federal permit. Some restrictions on development also apply to 75-acre circles around each nest site to provide foraging area for the birds.

The urgency for those clearing lots is that federal wildlife officials are drawing a new set of woodpecker nest maps, due any day. The revised maps will increase the identified woodpecker nests from about 15 to 25 and will greatly expand the number of lots where clearing or tree removal is restricted or banned without federal review.

"We're not picking on Boiling Spring Lakes," said Pete Benjamin, supervisor of the Raleigh office of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. "It is kind of a unique situation. You don't have a whole lot of areas other than that where you have big expanses of longleaf pine. Folks driving around the neighborhoods started seeing cavity trees all over the place. Once the information is in our hands, we are obliged to do something."

But many people here express the view that the community is being singled out unfairly.

Bill Davis, a retired IBM engineer, has a pair of longleaf pine trees in his front yard with woodpecker holes and the telltale sign of active nests: amber pine sap running down the trunks like pancake syrup. Woodpeckers drill tiny holes around the trunks to make them ooze sticky sap. That's believed to deter rat snakes from slithering up the trees and robbing the nests.

"I think the tree has had woodpeckers ever since we've lived here," Davis said as he stood beside the tree, which had a small metal tag identifying it as a nest tree. "I'm not going to cut the tree down. I know better."

But Davis said it is hard to imagine that Boiling Spring Lakes is one of the only places in southeastern North Carolina that has the endangered woodpeckers.

"What is happening here in town is selective enforcement," Davis said. "I'm not anti-environment. When they choose to selectively enforce the law, it's not right."

Real estate at risk

Lea Anne Werder, a real estate agent, said the woodpeckers had scared off several interested land buyers, and she'd lost two sales.

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