The
ivory-billed woodpecker, a symbol of the fading American wilderness
that was thought to have been pushed into extinction, has been spotted by
scientists for the first time in 60 years, taking wing in the wild swamplands
of Arkansas.The reappearance of the bird, one of the world's largest woodpeckers, was hailed Thursday as a validation of efforts to preserve and restore forested areas throughout the country.
"This is huge," said Frank Gill, a former president of the Audubon Society. "It's kind of like finding Elvis."
There have been sporadic reports of sightings since the last confirmed appearance of the bird in Louisiana in 1944, but researchers have generally dismissed them as the imaginings of overenthusiastic amateurs.
The new conclusion that the species is still extant is based on at least eight separate sightings in the last year — many of them by experienced ornithologists — and a video by David Luneau of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
Field Markings of the more Common Pileated Woodpecker:
"The bird captured on video is clearly an ivory-billed woodpecker," said
ornithologist John Weaver Fitzpatrick of Cornell University, who reported the
finding with his colleagues Thursday in the online version of the journal
Science.
The bird is hard to mistake. It has a 3-foot wingspan and distinctive
black-and-white markings.
The creature is sometimes called the "Lord, God bird," he said. "It's such a
striking bird that, when people would see it, they would say, 'Lord, God, what
a woodpecker!' "
Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton called the find an exciting opportunity.
"Second chances to save wildlife once thought to be extinct are rare," she
said at a Thursday news conference where she announced $10 million in new
funds to bolster restoration of the Big Woods of eastern Arkansas, where the
bird was spotted.
Ivory-billed woodpeckers (Campephilus principalis) once roamed freely
through the extensive cypress swamps and pine forests of the Southeast.
Biologist E.O. Wilson called them "the signature bird" of the Southern coastal
plain. They are large black-and-white birds, 19 to 21 inches long, that are
second in size only to the imperial woodpecker of Mexico.
Males have a red crest, while females have a black head and crest. White wing
patches and a stripe down the side of the head and continuing down its back
distinguish the ivory-billed from the pileated woodpecker, which is nearly as
large and much more abundant. The birds have a large, light-colored,
chisel-tipped bill; the pileated woodpecker has a much darker bill.
Dead trees provide nesting sites and food. The birds remove bark by pecking at
it with their characteristic double-tap drumming, which researchers have heard
frequently in the Big Woods area. Females lay three to four eggs, for which
the males assume sole responsibility at night.
A nesting pair requires about three square miles of forest for sustenance, so
that even when the birds were widespread, their populations were never dense.
It was this need for large areas of forest that drove the bird into
near-extinction as the wilderness fell to deforestation.
The bird was one of six North American bird species that were thought to have
gone extinct since 1880.
The current surge of interest began on Feb. 11, 2004, when amateur
ornithologist Gene M. Sparling III of Hot Springs, Ark., saw what he thought
was an ivory-billed woodpecker while kayaking in the Cache River National
Wildlife Refuge, halfway between Little Rock and Memphis, Tenn., and reported
it to a bird-watchers' website.
A week later, Tim W. Gallagher, editor of the Cornell lab of ornithology's
Living Bird magazine, and Bobby R. Harrison of Oakwood College in Huntsville,
Ala., interviewed him and were so impressed by his account that they
accompanied him on a second trip.
On Feb. 27, a large black-and-white woodpecker flew less than 70 feet in front
of their canoe on the bayou. Both simultaneously cried out, "Ivory-bill!"
After they finished their notes and sketches of the bird, Gallagher said,
"Bobby sat down on a log, put his face in his hands and began to sob, saying,
'I saw an ivory-bill. I saw an ivory-bill.' "
Gallagher said he was speechless after the sighting. "Just to think that this
bird made it into the 21st century gives me chills," he said. "It's like a
funeral shroud has been pulled back, giving us a glimpse of a living bird,
rising Lazarus-like from the grave."
Researchers then organized several bird-watching expeditions, spending more
than 7,000 hours seeking further sightings. They had six, all of which were
too fleeting for photography. Ultimately, Luneau reasoned that their best bet
was to leave a video camera running constantly. He captured four seconds of
footage showing the bird taking off from the trunk of a tupelo tree.
Carter Roberts, president of the World Wildlife Fund, summed up the emotions
of many Thursday: "For a passionate birder like me, the search for the
ivory-billed is the stuff of North American legend. This is monumental news
for those who spent years trying to confirm that the species was still soaring
through the swamps of Arkansas."
Scientists do not know how many ivory-billed woodpeckers there are in the
region or, indeed, whether they have actually seen many or just one male.
Because their lifespan is about 16 years, however, Fitzpatrick speculated that
there was at least one breeding pair.
And why now? Researchers said the Big Woods area had been in the process of
restoration for several years and was now about 40% along the way toward
maturity. Restoration has probably provided new food and nesting sites for
what might have been a very small group of the birds, allowing their numbers
to expand to a point where they began to come into more contact with humans.
View National Conservancy chart of the
shrinking habitat of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker.
It'll break your heart! The last confirmed sighting of the
ivory-billed woodpecker in the United States
was more than 60 years ago. Since the search began in March of 2004 there have
been more than a dozen sightings of the ivory-bill by experts in the
Big
Woods of Arkansas’ Mississippi Delta. For the
most detailed information on touring the Mississippi River Delta, order
Volume 4 of DISCOVER! America's Great River Road
at www.greatriver.com/order.htm
"In the end, these incredible birds remind us of a fundamental truth of
biology — life finds a way, if we just give it enough room," said Jamie
Rappaport Clark of Defenders of Wildlife.
Great
River Publishing