From Big Woods Partnership to Ivory-bill Recovery

Cutting across organizations and politics, extraordinary teamwork is behind the ivory-bill search and recovery efforts

by Ken Rosenberg

A pair of Ivory-bills filmed at their nest cavity in the Singer Tract, Louisiana, 1935

Arthur Allen/CLO

By the time scientists at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology heard the remarkable news that an Ivorybilled Woodpecker had been found in February 2004, an odd assemblage of local birders and conservation leaders was already converging on the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Arkansas. We all knew immediately that to give this rediscovery the attention it deserved, we would need to launch a highly organized effort in both research and on-the-ground conservation, and we would need to operate in secrecy, at least for a while.

Almost as remarkable as the discovery itself is the team that developed over the next year, eventually calling itself the Big Woods Conservation Partnership. Consisting of key individuals from the Arkansas chapter of The Nature Conservancy and the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, along with ivory-bill searchers including David Luneau, Bobby Harrison, and Gene Sparling, videographer Tim Barksdale, woodpecker expert Martjan Lammertink, and others, this team gathered by teleconference every Tuesday evening for 14 months to coordinate and report on all aspects of the ongoing search activities.

This group also developed contingency plans and outreach materials to assist the federal and state agencies after our public announcement. They orchestrated a series of agency and public briefings with associated media attention, and they co-authored the article submitted to Science, all while maintaining a strict code of confidentiality. Special credit must go to Scott Simon, director of the Arkansas chapter of The Nature Conservancy, whose energy and team-building skills kept our unlikely alliance intact.

Searchers seek evidence of breeding pairs in Arkansas. No pairs have been found yet.

Photo by Mark Godfrey/The Nature Conservancy

As our year-long search neared completion and we had not secured new photographic documentation, we completed a thorough analysis of a videotape shot by David Luneau on April 15, 2004, and announced confirmation of the ivory-bill rediscovery to our colleagues in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Arkansas state agencies.

Besides their visible excitement at the news, the agency biologists and administrators were extremely impressed with the efforts and professionalism of the Big Woods Conservation Partnership, which had already completed much of the work necessary for the agencies to respond properly. Under the Endangered Species Act, the Ivory-billed Woodpecker was now officially in the hands of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the important task of recovering its population was about to begin.

The original Big Woods Conservation Partnership remains committed to assisting the agencies, and many of us will participate on the Ivory-billed Woodpecker Recovery Team. This new team, which will be responsible for drafting a recovery plan for the species, will be led by Sam Hamilton, Southeast regional director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. An executive committee will include Lab director John Fitzpatrick. I will co-chair the biology working group, which will include Martjan Lammertink, to recommend and prioritize search and research activities connected with the ivory-bill. A habitat working group will include Ron Rohrbaugh, the Lab's director of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker Research Project, while The Nature Conservancy's Scott Simon will co-chair the third working group overseeing on-the-ground land conservation in what has been dubbed the "Corridor of Hope."

Many issues remain for the recovery team to sort out, including the compatibility of traditional uses such as hunting and fishing on the region's wildlife refuges, public accessibility for bird watching, and forest management to enhance the chances of ivory-bill survival. In all, the outpouring of support for conservation of bottomland hardwood habitats throughout the Southeast is extremely encouraging and reinforces our hope that the magnificent Ivorybilled Woodpecker can indeed recover and once again inspire awe in future generations of Americans.

Ken Rosenberg is director of the Lab's Conservation Science program.

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