'Extinct' Bird Gets Second Chance

By J.R. Pegg, Environment News Service. Posted April 28, 2005.

The ivory-billed woodpecker, long thought to be extinct, has been spotted in the swamp forests of eastern Arkansas, according to a paper published online Thursday by the journal Science. The discovery comes some 60 years after the last confirmed sighting of the large woodpecker and conservationists hope it will energize efforts to safeguard endangered species and their habitat.

The paper details several independent sightings of the species and frame-by-frame analyses of brief video footage gathered during a year long search in the Cache River and White River national wildlife refuges.

"The bird captured on video is clearly an ivory-billed woodpecker," said John Fitzpatrick, the article's lead author, and director of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. "Amazingly, America may have another chance to protect the future of this spectacular bird and the awesome forests in which it lives."

Uncommon, but once widespread across the mature, swampy hardwood forests of the southeastern United States, the ivory-billed woodpecker vanished after the extensive logging of region in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The species, roughly the size of the American crow, is the largest woodpecker in the United States -- and the world's third largest woodpecker.

In all, during more than 7,000 hours of search time, experienced observers reported at least 15 sightings of the woodpecker, seven of which were described in the Science article. More than 50 experts and field biologists worked on the project.

The first sighting came on Feb. 11, 2004 by Gene Sparling, who spotted the male ivory-billed woodpecker while kayaking in Cache River National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge is part of the "Big Woods" of Arkansas -- a 550,000 acre swath of bayous, bottomland forests and oxbow lakes. After learning of the sighting, Tim Gallagher, editor of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Living Bird magazine, and Bobby Harrison, associate professor at Alabama's Oakwood College traveled to Arkansas. On Feb. 27, 2004, the three men spotted the elusive woodpecker in the bayou where Sparling had first seen it.

The sightings led to the formation of a search team, which later became the Big Woods Conservation Partnership, and several additional sightings were confirmed, along with four seconds of video footage captured on April 25, 2004. Frame-by-frame analyses showed the distinctive white patterns on the bird's wings and back; features that distinguish the ivory-billed woodpecker from the superficially similar, and much more common, pileated woodpecker. Although the sightings are believed to be of the same bird, Fitzpatrick said the chance that this is the "last of its kind on the planet seem to be vanishingly small."

Woodpeckers rarely live beyond 15 years, Fitzpatrick told reporters, and the spottings prove the species "has been breeding in the Big Woods long after most professional ornithologists though it was extinct."

Prior to today's announcement, the last confirmed sighting of the bird -- a lone female -- was made in 1944 within the mature hardwood forest of northern Louisiana, in an area that now forms the Tensas River National Wildlife Refuge.

J.R. Pegg is Washington D.C. Bureau Chief for Environment News Service.

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