Posted on 04/28/2005 7:15:51 AM PDT by Right Wing Professor
Morning Edition, April 28, 2005 · A group of wildlife scientists believe the ivory-billed woodpecker is not extinct. They say they have made seven firm sightings of the bird in central Arkansas. The landmark find caps a search that began more than 60 years ago, after biologists said North America’s largest woodpecker had become extinct in the United States.
The large, showy bird is an American legend -- it disappeared when the big bottomland forests of North America were logged, and relentless searches have produced only false alarms. Now, in an intensive year-long search in the Cache River and White River national wildlife refuges involving more than 50 experts and field biologists working together as part of the Big Woods Partnership, an ivory-billed male has been captured on video.
"We have solid evidence, there are solid sightings, this bird is here," says Tim Barksdale, a wildlife photographer and biologist.
For an NPR/National Geographic Radio Expeditions story, NPR science correspondent Christopher Joyce joined the search last January along Arkansas’ White River, where a kayaker spotted what he believed to be an ivory-billed woodpecker more than a year ago. Many other similar sightings over the last 60 years have raised false hopes.
But this time, Joyce reports that experts associated with the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology in New York and The Nature Conservancy were able to confirm the sighting. They kept the find a secret for more than a year, partly to give conservation groups and government agencies time to protect the bird’s habitat.
The Nature Conservancy has been buying and protecting land along the White and Cache Rivers for years, along with the state and the federal Fish and Wildlife Service. Since the discovery, they've bought more land to protect the bird.
I live in TX, and as the say here every one of God creatures has a place on this planet. On a plate right next to the taters, with some gravy.
Living proof that you don't have to have a prick to be one...
And, B. O. Plenty.
I thought the pecker heads had left Arkansas for N.Y.
Used to. One thing you won't hear on NPR is that the enlightened people's republic of Cuba has been very bad for the environment, with several species having been wiped out in the last 50 years.
First assumed that's who/what the thread was about....Almost didn't click on it...am interested in the bird (we have lots of Pilated here) but not the human.
We have some really big woodpeckers around my wood at the Lake of the Ozarks. Lots of oak and similar hard woods and we're overrun with borers, so these birds are well fed.
Why is this bird so fragile. We live in a developed area and have piliateds out the wazoo. What's the diff?
Manly Wade Wellman would not be surprised to learn that the bird was not "extinct". Here are some other animals he claimed to still roam the back woods of the Ozarks. Most of them come from "The Desrick on Yandro", a short story I first came across in an Alfred Hitchock compilation of short stories.
Bammat: "...something hairy-like, with big ears and a long wiggly nose and twisty white teeth sticking out of its mouth." Like the Loch Ness Monster or Bigfoot, the Wooly Mammoth is believed to still roam the back woods of the mountains of America. - "The Desrick on Yandro" 1952
Behinder: No on can rightly say what it looks like "...for it's alway behind the man or woman it wants to grab." Silver John did see it once though: "Then I knew why nobody's supposed to see one. To this day I can see it, as plain as a fence at noon, and forever I will be able to see it. But talking about it is another matter. Thank you, I won't try." - "The Desrick on Yandro" 1952
Culverin:"...can shoot pebbles with its mouth." - "The Desrick on Yandro" 1952
Flat: "It lies level with the ground, and not much higher. It can wrap around you like a blanket." - "The Desrick on Yandro" 1952
Skim: "And above the tree tops sailed a round, flat thing, like a big plate being pitched high." - "The Desrick on Yandro" 1952
Toller: "It's the hugest flying thing there is... its voice tolls like a bell, to tell other creatures their feed's near." - "The Desrick on Yandro" 1952
Ugly Bird: The familiar of Mr. Onselm, an evil country sorcerer. It is a giant buzzard-like creature, but bigger. Possibly related to the Indian legend of the Thunder Bird, a giant eagle capable of carrying away children and small adults. "Then I made out the thin snaky neck, the bulgy head and long stork beak, the eye set in front of its head -- man-fashion in front, not to each side. The feet that taloned onto the sack showed pink and smooth with five graspy toes." - "O Ugly Bird" 1951
those big woodpeckers are "Pileated Woodpeckers" (sp??) and they look a lot like Ivory-Billed. I own some woodland out by Bolivar, MO and there's a lot of them around the Oak forests there
Ah yes, the "Two-faced Illinois Rugmuncher" is a rare bird indeed.
This is truly great news, as the value that will come out of this in tours will much outweigh the value of development. This could be the economic salvation of the area. Don't kill the goose that lays the golden egg!!!!!!!
The recipe makes this thread worth bookmarking..... that and the comment about the bird, Elvis and something about swiveling hips! :-)
Ivory-Billed
Nesting sight of Ivory-Billed Arkansas Tinnypecker
I wonder what it would taste like.
Supposedly they're shyer and more specialized. Pileateds live even near towns; ivory-billeds, supposedly, live only in undisturbed bottomland forest.
Not that anyone knows that much about them.
I still think it's cool that there are places in America where a very large, conspicuous bird could live esseentially unobserved for 60 years. It reminds you how big and relatively unspoiled this country is.
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