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.
Woodpeckers live on dead and dying trees or parts of trees. My question is why Ivory-bills are so much more fragile than these...
Piliateds are common as dirt where I live.
What's the difference between a pileated woodpecker and an ivory billed woodpecker?
About 3 inches.
They have a few beers and discuss what the possibilities are for this mishappening. A bent pecker or a busted pecker is wiped off the chart after the first sixpack. Discussion continues until the alcohol has the black-backed woodpecker calmed down.
A couple of months later the Arkansas woodpecker finds he is having the same problem. Now he calls his Alaskan cousin to fly down to help. The Alaskan woodpecker flies down goes to the tree and gnaws a sizable hole in it.
The moral of the story is: The farther away from home you are the harder your pecker gets. That is why you tend to drink more at home than on the road.
Sorry bout that. Our gain and your loss. Please keep them.
"No, that's just a very big pileated woodpecker."
That's often been the case. But if this really is the ivory-bill, and not just some "Piltdown man" stunt, then this is the ornithological equivalent of finding Elvis. IIRC, the last stronghold of the ivory-bill was remote forests in Cuba, and it is believed to be extinct there.
I don't know if they so much need a big range, as enough dead trees with the bark loose enough to knock off. Some ornithologists suggested back in the thirties that you could girdle trees and keep them standing to increase the food supply.
My late father swore he saw one in the fifties in NC, and he knew what a pileated looks like.
I really hope this is true - the ivory bill is in my top five list of extinct species I wish could come back - along with Steller's seacow.
Bird-watching ping! Rare bird in Arkansas...
Oh dear. That bird (pictured) looks like the same bird that a friend of mine accidentally shot while hunting in NW Pennsylvania. He shot it because he thought it was a turkey. I can't really blame hime because the bird was enormous and had a wingspan of more than two feet, and was really loud when it took flight. He shot it in the air. It landed in a tree, looked at us for a few moments, then fell to the ground where it died. I remember that I thought the sharp contrast between the white and black feathers on its wings and the bright red crest on its head were striking.
On the other hand, if he can't tell a turkey from a pileated woodpecker, he shouldn't be hunting. In deer season he's probably a danger to livestock.
Oops.
Au contraire. Snuffy Smith lives in the Southern Appalachians according to the original cartoonist, Billy DeBeck.
It's the Clampetts who come from Arkansas. Got to keep your amusing hicks straight.
I've been studying the pictures of each and searching my memory. The bird my friend shot had dark brown, nearly black feet, had the white stripes up either side of the back, and had a black central crown over the red crest. After studying the pics, I am nearly certain the bird was the same kind as the picture at the beginning of the post. Has NW Pa. ever been considered part of their range?
Ping for long-lost billing forms, stashed away in a corridor called Hope, somewhere in Arkansas. Ping for "Elvis." And "peckers."
Not sure how but this "is" a Clinton thread.
I think this news is great. I'm no bird nut but I love looking at the cardinals and blue-jays that come use my bird feeder. Fascinating stuff.
No. Here's the historical range. They liked Southern forests. Your friend is off the hook, though he really ought not to shoot unless he knows what he's shooting at.
On the other hand, the pileated wookpecker lives in the Alleghenies, so it's likely that that's what he shot.
See how did I know a freeper would post this.
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