Ivory-bill Search Continues in Arkansas, Expands to Other States

John Schmitt

After two field seasons in Arkansas, the Lab's Ivory-billed Woodpecker search team will be renewing its efforts to document ivory-bills in the Big Woods this December. The searches will also expand to other states, adding an exciting new dimension to the 2006–2007 season.

In September, an independent team from Auburn University and the University of Windsor announced encouraging evidence of ivory-bills in Florida (see the article Ghost Birds of the Choctawhatchee in this issue).

As state agencies and nongovernmental organizations join the effort to search for ivory-bills outside of Arkansas, the Lab will be a key collaborator in a rangewide search this year.

"Searching for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker has finally blossomed into a long-overdue, systematic national effort spanning all the big forests of the Southeast where the species could persist," says John Fitzpatrick, the Lab's director. "The broad effort is being coordinated and modestly funded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Geological Survey, with significant additional support provided by individual states, local agencies, and the private sector."

The Lab is developing a targeted deployment strategy and mobile search team to provide support and expertise to states throughout the ivory-bill's former range. The team will travel from state to state, assisting with searches and assessing the probability that ivory-bills might still dwell there.

The team will help train volunteers and paid searchers in field methods and search protocols. The Lab will also help raise funds for local search efforts and provide equipment, such as remote cameras and acoustic recording equipment.

Throughout the search, the Lab will maintain its database of public reports of ivory-bill sightings and pass along any good leads to the appropriate local search team.

"We'll never know if ivory-bills are extant outside of Arkansas unless we undertake systematic searches of key areas, a task that should have been done decades ago," said Ron Rohrbaugh, director of the Lab's Ivory-billed Woodpecker Research Project.

"We will participate in the search as long as objective evidence exists that the species might persist," says Fitzpatrick. "Wouldn't it be exciting if next year, or the year after, we could turn our attention to studying ivory-bills at the nest?"

To support the search for the ivory-bill, visit www.birds.cornell.edu/ivory.

For permission to reprint all or part of this article, please contact Laura Erickson, editor, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, 159 Sapsucker Woods Rd., Ithaca, NY, 14850. Phone: (607) 254-1114. email: lle24@cornell.edu