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.
In the TV Show the Clampetts came from Tennessee, in the movie the Clampetts came from Arkanasas...
It's decline has little to do with competition with the Pileated.
His trial came up, and he explained to the judge, that he had to eat the owl, he was stranded out in the woods for three days with no food, and had the chance to kill the owl for nourishment.
The judge said, "Well, taking into consideration the extenuating circumstances at the time, we will drop all charges." The man sighed a sigh of relief and rose to leave the courtroom. Just then the judge asked him, "By the way, what did the Spotted Owl taste like?"
The hiker replied, "It tasted like a mix of Bald Eagle and Whooping Crane, except it was a little greasy like California Condor."
If that's what biologists are getting paid in Arkansas then I am grossly underpaid. I would be willing to bet the majority of experts were volunteers and academics.
That must be the Backwoods Family Size can. I gotta look for those.
Actually, when I heard aboiut the Ivory Bills, one worry I had was that with a very small population, they're likely to be highly inbred. Then I thought, why should they be any different from the rest of Arkansas?
That comment conjured up some unwelcome mental images.
Permit me, sir, to differ.
In the canonical TV series, the Clampetts' original pre-Texas-tea homestead was undeniably in the Ozarks, as one epsisode clearly indicated that they were very near to "Silver Dollar City," an attraction just over the Arkansas-Missouri line in Branson. It is possible that the Clampetts might have lived in far southern Missouri rather than in northern Arkansas, but they were clearly Ozarkian in origin.
I didn't see the movie, and so cannot comment on what violations of the Canon took place there. It is obviously apocryphal or deuterocanonical.
Is today April First? "They must be breeding somewhere" as opposed to "This may be the lone survivor of its species from 1880"???
Hello, I am new here and want to set some things straight on the Ivory Bill. Before the barrage of criticism and insults let me say a few things in order to try and prove my conservative leanings. I am anti abortion, pro gun, and anti taxes. I have enough nonconservative leanings that I may not qualify as conservative with Freepers. This may be the only post I ever make anyhow.
This discovery is phenomenal and anyone who considers himself a God believer should be in awe of all of nature, not just the human part of it. If He saw fit to create it, don't you all think that is worth some respect if not reverence?
The Ivory Bill's diet consists of Cerymbycidae, Scolytidae, and Buprestidae beetle larva(grubs). Trees containing these grubs are old trees that are still standing as they die. In the natural state of things, these trees were abundant. The expert on Ivory Bills, James Tanner found that a pair need six square miles of uncut forest to support a family. This is vast more area needed than by Pileateds.
The Ivory Bills got sucker punched in a couple of ways. As recently as the early 1800's the birds were plentiful, but the problems were brewing. The Ivory became highly prized for their crowns and beaks; this never happened to the Pileated. So good ole enterprising humans saw money and went in guns blazing, literally. Sadly, early ornithologists did their share of damage by shooting so many for studies and collections.
Ivory Bills also had their old growth forests cut out from under them at an alarming rate. Once the North ran out of virgin forest, they looked South. After the Civil War, they had their chance. If you check out some maps of the Ivory range, you will see how the range became smaller as they fled to the South.
This assault from every direction was too much at once. Perhaps the Ivory would have adapted if they simply had more time. Humans would be the same way. If someone came in and surprise attacked you from every direction, you might not fare so well. Remember the Jews, the American Indians, and all the other humans strewn along history's dark alleys. This attitude of "if it can't adapt, it doesn't deserve to live" is illogical and disturbing. Is this applicable to the 911 victims? They didn't adapt very well to the ambush of ambushes did they? They didn't deserve that and neither does the nature we have been blessed with.
Aren't we to be stewards of the land and also have the attitude of a child? Our world would be a lot less interesting and of no quality if we take the "slap on the dinner plate" attitude to the nth degree.
Anyone remotely interested in this subject should read Philip Hoose's "The Race to Save the Lord God Bird". It begins with a heart stopping account of an interaction between an early American ornithologist and the Ivory. Fascinating. That intro is a good parallel to what appears to be happening with that great bird now. Just sure it was dead forever, and suddenly very much alive.
"A majestic and formidable species...his eye is brilliant and daring...as to impress on the mind of the examiner the most reverential ideas of the Creator."-Alexander Wilson
This is ridiculous. My best friend and I saw one in the late eighties. We live in Miami and the everglades is 15 minutes from my house. Who would belive us? No one. Been there. Done that.
Yes, it must be a pileated woodpecker. The bird he shot was large, and 2 - 2 1/2 foot wingspan is about right and fits both species. Since the ivory billed's range is nowhere near PA, I guess it must have been the pileated. Fine with me.
How ironic that people who believe the world is a gigantic meaningless coincidence will now engage in an orgy of suggestions about what we "should" do, and those of us who believe that G-d created all things for us will be dismissed as "alienated from nature" by both the atheist materialists and the pagan nature worshippers. And of course there are always a few "if it moves, kill it; if it's green, pave it" types who think they have to breathe carbon dioxide because liberals breathe oxygen. (Why are conservatives for progress and progressives for conservation?)
As for me, I thank HaShem, Melekh Malkhei HaMelakhim Who created this magnificent creature for us and pray that He will help us cherish and conserve them properly, without engaging in either scientific materialism or pantheistic nature worship.
Alouette, is there a berakhah for this?
I'm with you. I'm sure most people with the "slap it on the dinner plate" remarks are just joking (I hope) but discoveries like this thrill me. I love nature more than I can put into words. I don't belong to any organized religion because, to me, I find my spiritual answers in the outdoors, among God's creations. They never cease to fill me with awe. This bird is absolutely beautiful. No one looking at a beautiful creature like that could doubt the existence of God.
Animal and nature haters are just a bunch of liberal pinko city slickers!
I disagree with you about the non-necessity of an "organized religion" or the sufficiency of the outdoors (since I believe in the Biblical G-d and hope for the rebuilding of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem in the near future), but I must join you in marvelling in the irony of atheists who love nature and "theists" who hate it. You'd think that G-d created man and man only, and nature were something alien and evil. I am 100% opposed to nature worship and to scientific naturalism, but how in the world can anyone who believes in G-d (and I mean the Biblical G-d, not some "gxd of nature") not be grateful to Him for all the wonderful things He has made for us? It is our duty, not to worship nature, but to be good stewards of G-d's creation.
Isn't it amazing that people who insist that the universe is utterly meaningless insist on a totalitarian world order to prevent the extinction of a single species, while people who believe G-d created everything for a purpose seem to be unable to care less? Sort of like the equally ironic phenomenon of creationist racists and evolutionist anti-racists (and that doesn't make any sense either!).
My sister once told me about a book entitled Confessions of a Conservative Environmentalist (or something like that). And my sister is one. She's a Southern Baptist--very conservative--but chose to live out in the country and then found that developers were planning to seize nearby land and uproot a community over a century old in order to build a very loud lake for recreational motorboating (there's already a very quiet lake for fishing and rowing nearby). Then it was the threat of a highway by-pass. She's been fighting in her causes for years, and has even found the EPA to be an ally to private property when developers begin to agitate for the right to confiscate others' property in the name of imminent domain or the public good.
At any rate, conservatism is by its nature attuned to the verities, the eternals, the old rather than the new and untried. Why is it so associated in this day and time with "progress?" Shouldn't "progressives" be for progress? Just as we look back fondly to saner times, we also look back to a time when nature was less spoiled, when the trees grew tall and the grass was green and birdsong filled the air. Is it not ironic that people who preach continual upward social evolution (and warn constantly against "reaction" and "turning back the clock") allegedly want to return to a pre-industrial, pastoral society? Hey, if they'll turn back the sociological clock at the same time, I say brang it awn!
Rush has done a disservice to this country by lumping too many into the enviro-whacko category. Not all of us who are interested in stewardship of the God's creation are Gaea worshippers. A few, like me, have to look over our left shoulder on most issues to see most of the rest of you.
Yes, Rush goes too far on that one (but I'm not much of a dittohead anyway, economics not being my main concern). I must confess that I have always regarded the sound of a chainsaw with horror and revulsion, so I don't appreciate his little environmental whacko update "music." I'd rather live out in the country than in any big city (though I have done so and admit that city life has its charms as well).
I myself once saw a baby pileated woodpecker at the side of the road and stopped and picked it up. At this point "mama" made her appearance, and she was formidable indeed!
Out here we regularly have possums coming onto the back porch to eat scraps and I'm always happy to see them. The other night I cornered one sufficiently to rub it on its back a little (far away from its business end). And while it didn't sull, at least it didn't threaten me with its teeth either.
Personal encounters with G-d's creatures are always a thrill, and I thank Him for creating them for us and hope that the day will soon come when the original relationship we shared in Gan `Eiden will be restored.
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