The Center for Biological Diversity on Wednesday, October 8, 2014 filed an emergency petition to protect the tricolored blackbird as endangered under the California Endangered Species Act. The Center cited the numerous threats faced by tricolored blackbirds and the dramatic decline documented most recently in this year's Statewide Survey. The Center's petition listed losses of native habitats, including wetlands, grasslands and shrublands, to agriculture, urbanization, market hunting and shooting in autumn when tricolors forage in mixed flocks on ripening rice with red-winged blackbirds, pesticide use, and harvest of grain fields while eggs and young are in the nests as among the factors resulting in the decline. The losses of native habitats and widespread pesticide use are the most likely causes of the chronic low productivity of the species, and the continuing severe drought is likely further stressing the species. Tricolors occurred in the millions in the 1930's but the 2014 Statewide Survey found that only 145,000 birds remain in California.