The Ivory-billed Woodpecker Still Lives

On April 28, 2005, in the auditorium of the U.S. Department of the Interior, accompanied by two cabinet members and two U.S. senators, a remarkable partnership of naturalists and institutions announced to the world that the Ivory-billed Woodpecker is not extinct. Represented in the group were scientists from the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, The Nature Conservancy, and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, agency personnel from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, and Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission, a professor of art at Oakwood College in Huntsville, Alabama, and a naturalist-outfitter turned folk hero named Gene Sparling, from Hot Springs, Arkansas. The audience alternated between hushed tones and spontaneous applause as the cast of characters was introduced. Tears met many eyes. The politicians rejoiced and pledged support for a recovery effort.

We feel both unspeakable joy and a somber recognition of responsibility in being closely associated with this discovery and partnership. Beginning in March 2004, Lab scientists organized and conducted an exhaustive effort to learn more about this mysterious bird and its vast home, the Big Woods of eastern Arkansas. The Nature Conservancy took bold steps to secure more than 18,000 new acres of forest or forest-restoration land in the vicinity of the woodpecker sightings. Working together, our two organizations engaged a number of private philanthropists who were willing to take the risk and donate significant resources for both the research and the forest conservation efforts. Gradually, we also brought the state and federal agencies into the loop, as these agencies are the principal managers of the Big Woods. They, in turn, began preparing for the inevitable onslaught of public attention and visitation, and developing strategies for management and public education in the region. We felt strongly that all of these activities would benefit from being shielded from the enormous public attention we knew the discovery would generate. For a host of reasons, we also knew that the secret should not be held indefinitely.

Science cover courtesy of the American Association for the Advancement of Science

Illustration by George Miksch Sutton

Early on, we made two important decisions. First, we would work hard through the winter and spring of 2005 to gain as much information as we could about the bird or birds that had been sighted. Our rule was "information first, documentation second," which in part explains why we have so many sightings in the absence of pictures. Fleeting glimpses of a woodpecker flying across an opening brought the binoculars up first, thus in a few cases providing observers with a detailed glance at key field marks for a precious second or two before the bird disappeared. Second, we were determined to treat this as a scientific discovery, not a bird-watching event. Therefore, we needed to accumulate physical, tangible evidence for the existence of the species and to present our best evidence in a reputable, peer-reviewed scientific journal before discussing the discovery in public. We chose Science magazine, the flagship technical weekly published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Our brief article was accepted for publication on April 25, 2005--exactly one year after David Luneau secured the historic video that became the centerpiece of our article. Coincidentally, but for unrelated reasons, our secret began to leak on that same day, so we hastily arranged the news conference in which we made the information public. Editors at AAAS worked feverishly with us for two days to prepare the final version of the paper and its supporting online materials in time for their publication date that week. We owe them special thanks.

The Big Woods of Arkansas

Photo by Clark Jones

Amid the public jubilation and media frenzy associated with this discovery, we must remain deeply sober about the realities of how little we know and where the woodpecker stands. After more than a year of work and thousands of person-hours by as many as two dozen searchers scouring the Big Woods, we have only a small handful of reliable sightings, a single poor-quality video, and a small collection of recorded acoustic signatures that match both the display drum and the nasal kent call of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. We have no evidence of a breeding pair and not even a reliable place where we can consistently relocate the bird. Contrary to some headlines, we have not documented the return of this majestic species. Rather, we have uncovered--once again--evidence that North America's rarest and most endangered bird species is not yet extinct. This event has happened before. In the 1920s Arthur Allen jubilantly announced that he had seen a pair in northern Florida (see page 28). A short time later, two local taxidermists who had heard about the rediscovery shot both birds. In the 1930s the species was rediscovered in northeastern Louisiana, only to be wiped out within a decade when the great Singer Tract forest was logged. In the 1950s, credible sightings in northern Florida prompted the National Audubon Society to purchase a preserve along the Chippola River. When the woodpecker stopped being seen, Audubon sold the preserve. In the late 1960s the woodpecker was spotted (and tape recorded) in eastern Texas, prompting timber harvesting in the Big Thicket to increase. The same fate befell the great forests of the Congaree and Santee rivers in South Carolina following reports of ivory-bills in the 1970s. Will America commit, finally, to doing the opposite with the spectacularly immense and diverse Big Woods of eastern Arkansas? Only time will tell. Promises are there, but these must be followed by action.

The role of high-profile endangered species is to serve as signals of mistakes we are making in managing our natural resources and as motivators to correct our course. Whether or not the Ivory-billed Woodpecker survives and recovers to grace the towering treetops of our southern forests, we should commit as a nation to managing significant tracts of those forests as if it could. If we succeed in growing back some of these ancient forests--at a scale that is indeed possible in the Big Woods and other places--there does remain a chance that our descendants might marvel, as did John James Audubon, when a Lord God Bird flies overhead.

John W. Fitzpatrick
Louis Agassiz Fuertes Director

For permission to reprint all or part of this article, please contact Jennifer Smith, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, 159 Sapsucker Woods Rd., Ithaca, NY, 14850. Phone: (607) 254-2497. email: jls39@cornell.edu