The Ivory-billed Woodpecker has become the UFO of the field ornithology
community, complete with cover-up conspracy theories, true-believers and
no real evidence outside of Cuba (yes they are confirmed in small numbers in
Cuba).

I know I hear about somebody seeing IBWO every couple of years and I live
nowhere near their expected range. Birders have some of the most sophisticated
camera equipment I have ever seen, yet no one even manages a bad picture.
No one's "accidently" shot one.
I've even heard the "well, everyone knows they're still around, but they're
keeping it quiet to protect the birds or the endangered species people off
their backs" theory.

File Ivory-billed Woodpecker next to Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster and
leave it for the Cryptozoologists to waste their time on...
--
**************************************************************
Mike Patterson, Astoria, OR
mpatters at ednet1.osl.or.gov
**************************************************************
==============================

From: Jim Felley <IRMSS668 at SIVM.SI.EDU>

I taught biology at a small college in southwestern Lousiana in the '80's.
Every other year (i.e., when I taught Ornithology), I would get a visit
by someone who would claim to know an area where ivory-bills lived.
Never was the location specified (it was "private" or "secret", so
"no one would spoil it"). Extensive questioning always elicited the
statement that "I know pileated woodpeckers perfectly well! That's not
what these are!"

I did two things each time: (a) I pointed out that if the secret
was kept long enough, one day they would return to their secret place
to find it a clearcut or a highway, and (b) I mentally round-filed
the info. I deeply believe in the IBW=UFO correspondence.
Jim

Jim Felley, Computer Specialist
Smithsonian Institution
IRMSS668 at SIVM.SI.EDU
======================================

From: "Oberle, Mark W." <MWO1 at PHPPO1.EM.CDC.GOV>

The last reasonable sighting of Ivory-billed Woodpecker in Georgia was in the
mid-1950's when Henry Stoddard was flying over the lower Altamaha River
swamp. The Atlanta Audubon Society gets 3 or 4 reports a month of the
species. They never pan out. If anyone hears rumors of the species in Georgia
that sound remotely reasonable, I'd be glad to coordinate checking them out.

The Ivory-billed Woodpecker in North America required extensive
old-growth forest to survive. It specialized on bark insects that
it uncovered by prying off big plates of bark on larger trees.
Unfortunately the bird encountered a habitat bottleneck in the
twentieth century. Although old growth swamp forests were clearcut
except for small fragments in the earlier parts of this century,
many reserves have since been established that might ultimately
have supported the species if these swamp forests were allowed to
mature. But no single swamp forest was large enough to support a
viable population in the mid-twentieth century. I visited Lewis Island in
the lower Altamaha drainage last March. There are a few very old cypress
there that were more than 1000 feet from the nearest waterway/canal and
survived because they were beyond reach of draglines. Lots of pileated
woodpeckers, but the timber plantations stretch right up to the edge of the
swamp.

In any one region of the country, we have the notion that elsewhere
there are large virgin areas where species thrive, despite all the
hype about the Spotted Owl and other endangered species. For
example, Northerners have the notion that the South must have large
primeval river swamps, where Ivory-billed Woodpeckers and other
species remain undisturbed. Southerners have an image of vast
Northwestern forests that stretch up to the Canadian tundra. Both
images were true when many of us were children, but are now
outdated. Human population growth, road building, and mechanized
logging have fragmented ecosystems severely.

I am writing an obituary for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker for a local
publication and can send people a private email with a copy when I get it
published.

Mark Oberle
Public Health Practice Program Office (E20)
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Atlanta, GA 30333
tel: 404-639-1938
Internet MWO1 at PHPPO1.EM.CDC.GOV
==========================

From: Paul DeBenedictis <BENEDICT at SNYSYRV1.bitnet>

To add to Mark Oberle's comments, the most recent word from Cuba is that the
endemic subspecies there also is extinct, within the last 10 years or so. What
a shame!

Paul DeBenedictis
SUNY Health Science Center at Syracuse
=============================

From: Kevin Vang <kvang at LAUREL.OCS.MQ.EDU.AU>

The Cuban subspecies was alive and hanging on in 1990/ 1991 when several
teams went down to find it and a few were seen. I thought that WWF had a
program in conjunction with US and Cuban academics to protect it. Its
habitat,a band of pine forests in eastern Cuba was under threat from
loggers. I have never heard that the Cuban sub species is extinct.
Although being in the Pacific, I might have missed something. Before
anybody writes an obituary, I want to see one scholarly article or even a
credible news report about the Cuba situation. Cuban birds were
photographed in the late 1980's and possibly on the 1990/1991 trips.

I appeal to Joe and Hank etc to post the very latest details. But until there
is definative news out of Cuba, the Ivory Bill is alive and well (oh well,
hanging on anyway) as it should be. And unless this news is forthcoming,
I DO NOT expect to see any obituary in BIRDCHAT!!!!

Kevin
(Hope springs eternal)
******************************************************************************
Dr. Kevin Vang: School of Earth Sciences or the School of History, Philosophy
and Politics, The Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2019, AUSTRALIA

Director, Environment and Development Group International, 64/302 Burns Bay Rd
Lane Cove, NSW 2066 AUSTRALIA Email <kvang at laurel.ocs.mq.edu.au>

ANTARES*HEPHAISTION*ALDEBARAN*FARAMIR*ALTAIR*NORDLAND*RIGEL*MUIR*ETNA*RIVENDELL
*****************************************************************************BB
=====================================

From: Dalcio Dacol <dacol at I7140OO.NRL.NAVY.MIL>
>From Dalcio Dacol, Washington, DC,

>From the book "Threatened Birds of the Americas", The ICBP/IUCN
Red Data Book, N. J. Collar et al., (Smithsonian 1992):

Summary statement on the Ivory-billed Woodpecker:

"The North American population of this large woodpecker is very
probably extinct, and the most recent evidence suggests that there
is almost as little hope for the Cuban form, which was last reported
in 1988 with glimpses in 1991, despite much intensive searching in
the Sierra de Moa, the area to which it finally retreated in the course
of this century; destruction of its virgin forest habitat, of which
each pair needed very large amounts, is chiefly to blame for the loss
of the species."

Further in the text one reads that "...the last confirmed sightings were
in March and April 1986, April 1987 and March 1988. Thorough searches
in 1990 and 1991 were unsuccessful. However fresh barking activity
(I pressume they mean holes in the bark of trees... DD) and a few 3 second
long glimpses in the Sierra de Moa in April 1991 could have beenby or of
the species. ... the most recent expedition in March of 1992 failed to
find it, although fresh signs of foraging atributed to this species
in the headwaters of the Rio Jaguani fostered the view that probably
one or two birds still existed between Rio Piloto and Ojito de Agua, and
perhaps in other unstudied areas, such as east of La Melba. Basically,
however, the forests in the Sierra de Moa are too degraded, and the last
possible refuge in the area is a narrow corridor between the Cupeyal
Reserve and Ojito de Agua and the upper reaches of the Rio Jaguani. Even
if some birds survive, there seems to be no real chance that the species
can be saved; the precise date of extinction, whether passed or
impending, is unlikely ever to be determined."

Nonetheless, in the August 1993 issue of "The BWD Skimmer" there was a
brief note stating, without giving the source, that a few Ivory-billed
Woodpeckers had been found in 1993 in remote forests in Cuba.


Dalcio Dacol
Washington, DC
dacol at abyss.nrl.navy.mil
=========================

From: William Barnard <BARNARD at NORWICH.bitnet>

I wish Jerome Jackson would come on line and discuss this. He is
at Mississippi State University and gave a talk a few years back about his
trip to Cuba to view the IVWO. They did see them in the pine forests
there. Not many, but they were present. If I recall, about six were noted.
As I recall, he was preparing another trip to look for the woodpeckers.

Jerome is known for his work with woodpeckers and has been
searching the hardwood swamps with a tape trying to see an Ivory-billed
Woodpecker in this country. He told about an outing with a graduate
student where the student came running back with news that he had heard an
IVWO. The two moved into location with the grad student whispershouting
"Hear it? Hear it?" Jerome admitted to some hearing loss and could not.
The bird was moving toward them as I recall the story, and a decision was
made not to chase the bird but wait for it to come into range/view so that
a photo could be taken instead of a quick glimpse of a retreating bird.
The bird continued to move toward them then suddenly went silent and was
not seen. The grad student is convinced that he heard the bird, Jerome
admits to not hearing it clearly enough. Jerome was willing to share the
location with a serious researcher who would want to spend time searching.

His concern was that under the federal Endangered Species Act, a
species is considered extirpated after a period of time with no confirmed
"sighting". Then the species is no longer eligible for research/management
funding.
____________________________________________________________
| William Barnard Phone: 802-485-4691 |
| Biology Department FAX: 802-485-2580 |
| Norwich University E-MAIL:barnard at norwich.bitnet |
| Northfield, Vermont USA |
| 05663 |
------------------------------------------------------------
==========================

From: "R. D. Purrington" <rdp at ROSEBUD.PHY.TULANE.EDU>

Perhaps a few comments are in order on the flurry of Ivory-billed reports
from Louisiana in the 1970s (into the early 80s). In 1972, I believe, George
Lowery showed me some "Instamatic" phots of a male Ivory-billed Woodpecker
which we looked at under a dissecting microscope. They had been taken
recently in the Atchafalaya basic and the only question was whether they
were of a live bird or a specimen mounted on a tree. I couldn't tell from
the pictures, though I believe George said that Sid Gauthreaux and Laurie
Binford had earlier expressed the view that it was a mounted bird. Efforts,
which were not very elaborate, to find the bird, failed, with the qualification
that one observer did claim a brief look at one....(?) near the site of
the photograph. Later Bob Hamilton thought he saw one fly across I10 in the
middle of the Atchafalaya basin. Finally, there was another report from
the easter edge of the basin which did not bear fruit, although a group
including Jim Stewart scoured the area.

Bob Newman once told me that someone from the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries
Commission told him where the Atchafalaya specimen had come from, i.e., he
claimed that the whole thing was a fraud. Whether that story has any
substance, I don't know.

In any event, what little evidence there is that the Ivory-billed
Woodpecker survived
in Louisiana into the 1970s is VERY equivocal, and only marginally better
than the wild fourth-hand stories one continually hears about someone's
brother who know's where they can be found. For what it's worth, James
Tanner dismissed the Atchafalya, which was virtually (perhaps entirely)
cutover at one time or another, as being suitable for the woodpecker, when
he did his study for NAS.

I suppose every one knows the story of how the Singer Tract in Tensas Parish
was cut down in the 40s for gun stocks, including the felling of a tree with
an active Ivory-billed nest in it!

When I was president of the Louisiana Ornithological Society in the late 60s-
early 70s, I proposed that LOS adopt the Ivory-billed for its logo, which
was done, in the hope that attention drawn to the bird would help save its
habitat in the Atchafalya. Whether the bird existed then or not, it seems
to have been a pitifully futile gesture.

dan purrington
rdp at rosebud.phy.tulane.edu
=========================

From: Gail Mackiernan <GAIL at UMDD.bitnet>

When I was doing some work in the mid-1980s in Vicksburg, MS., I met at
least one birder who, as a youth, had seen Ivory-bills in the Singer Tract.
I drove over one day to the vicinity of Tallulah (sp?) LA near where the
tract once was -- it was pretty much the same economically-depressed looking
agricultural area as the surrounding counties. How much better off would
that area be now economically if the tract had been preserved and managed,
with its resident Ivory-bills, Red Wolves, Eastern Cougars and who-knows-
what else? What an attraction to scientists, tourists and naturalists!

Oh well, we never seem to learn much...the same sorry thing is happening
in Hawai'i, where rare native forest is being felled for residential
development, etc. Along with their unique birds, of course...

I guess the Magellanic Woodpecker of South America is the largest surviving
member of its genus now...a friend showed me photos taken last year, huge
big bird, recurved crest, very "Ivory-billed" looking. Hope it makes it
through the next century!

Gail Mackiernan, Gail at UMDD.UMD.EDU