| Ivory
Billed Woodpecker! |
fores-@earthlink.net |
| Apr
28, 2005 17:13 PDT |
WOW! They finally found the Ivory-bill again. Cache River of
Arkansas.
Thankfully TNC had been buying up swampland with good quality
forest in the
area.
I knew they
were still out there.
|
| Ivory
Billed Woodpecker |
Edward
Frank |
| Apr
28, 2005 20:42 PDT |
Rediscovering the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker:
Long believed to be extinct, a magnificent bird--the
Ivory-billed Woodpecker--has been rediscovered in the Big Woods
of eastern Arkansas. More than 60 years after the last confirmed
sighting of the species in the United States, a research team
announced that at least one male ivory-bill still survives in
vast areas of bottomland swamp forest. Published in the
journal Science on its Science Express Web site (April
28, 2005), the findings include multiple sightings of the
elusive woodpecker and frame-by-frame analyses of brief video
footage.
Cornell Lab of Ornithology
http://birds.cornell.edu/ivory/
The Ivory-Billed Woodpecker has Returned
The Nature Conservancy
http://www.nature.org/ivorybill/?&g_Ivory_billed_woodpecker
The Ivory-billed Woodpecker is Rediscovered in Arkansas!
Mary Scott, April 27, 2005
http://www.birdingamerica.com/ivorybilledwoodpecker.htm
WWF Statement on Reports that Ivory-Billed Woodpecker Is Not
Extinct
For Release: 04/28/2005
http://www.worldwildlife.org/news/
--------------------------------------------------------------
I also wanted to say that one of the best articles we have on
our website
is one entitled:
Search for The Ivory Billed Woodpecker, by Matthew Largess Jan
2003
http://www.nativetreesociety.org/fieldtrips/arkansas/search_for_the_ivory.htm
|
| RE:
IVORY-BILL! video online |
Paul
Jost |
| Apr
29, 2005 05:19 PDT |
ENTS,
The full story and video are at:
http://www.ivorybill.org/
In addition to the text that is available, if you have the
bandwidth and
Apple Quicktime free viewer software, then view the video link.
Paul Jost
|
| RE:
Ivory Billed Woodpecker |
DonCB-@netscape.net |
| Apr
29, 2005 06:39 PDT |
My father called us yesterday giddy about the rediscovery of the
ivory-billed woodpecker in Arkansas. From what I read in the
paper this morning, they are going to temporarily close the
section of the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge (not the
Cache River National Forest, as called by the CBS Evening News
last night) where the sightings were to better protect the
population from disturbance until they figure out a system to
allow visitors. They will continue searching for other
individuals, but they have a large area of hard-to-get-through
swamp and woods to examine. Check out this website for more
info: http://www.ivorybill.org/
The Sugarberry Natural Area which I was thinking of using as a
stop in next year's ENTS Arkansas Rendezvous is in the White
River National Wildlife Refuge, just downstream from the Cache
River locations, and is a part of the "Big Woods"
system. Wouldn't surprise me at all if more are found in the
swampy woods of eastern Arkansas!!
Don Bragg
|
| RE:
Ivory Billed Woodpecker |
Robert
Leverett |
| Apr
29, 2005 08:11 PDT |
Don:
It's interesting. I never think of Arkansas as having a
significant
area of swampy terrain. My time in Arkansas has been
concentrated in
western Arkansas and the extreme Northeast - the Blytheville
area. I
have been to Hot Springs NP, but that was a long time ago.
This is a whole new experience and an exciting one. looks like
we
really made the right choice for next year's ENTS rendezvous.
Bob
|
| RE:
IVORY-BILL! |
Darian
Copiz |
| Apr
29, 2005 11:12 PDT |
Bob,
Although it could be a rallying point I am sure there are enough
who may
be cursing it, saying now the South now has its Spotted owl!
Although
there already is the Red-cockaded woodpecker, I would imagine
the
Ivory-bill does have more public appeal. It's rebirth from the
ashes of
extinction also makes it special. As long as the further
protection
does not cause even the smallest financial loss to any of the
Bush
administration's buddies, then possibly it may take action for
further
protection. However, I suspect that the administration will only
pulicize any protections that are already in place and claim
responsibility for them.
Despite my pessimism for protection, I'm sure that there will be
some
good results from the discovery, results that will be beneficial
to far
more than just one species of woodpecker.
Unfortunately the bird is still on the brink of extinction
though,
especially if some people head off into the woods with shotguns
saying
"thought the damn bird was dead, better go make sure it
stays dead!"
But let's hope for the best.
Darian
|
| RE:
IVORY-BILL! |
Lee
E. Frelich |
| Apr
29, 2005 11:30 PDT |
Bob et al.:
Gale Norton today announced a multi-million dollar program for
recovery of
the Ivory Billed Woodpecker population. In addition, The Nature
Conservancy has received several million dollars in donations
for the project.
Although its nice to perhaps have the Ivory Billed Woodpecker
back (the
population may or may not be viable), there are several hundred
other less
charismatic species of plants, animals, insects, and fungi
living in
hardwood forests that will go extinct during the next century.
In much of the country (New England being an exception for now)
only about
10% of the original hardwood forests remain, and ecological
theory predicts
that about 50% of all species living in these forest types will
eventually
go extinct with that degree of habitat loss.
This prediction is just for habitat loss and fragmentation
alone, it does
not account for invasive species such as European earthworms,
high deer
populations, and climate change, which greatly magnify the
problem. I have
recently received reports of ecosystem collapse in large
non-fragmented
tracts of hardwood forest in northern Wisconsin and Upper
Michigan, where
an average stand has lost about 25% of all plant species during
the last 50
years. This is true even for forests that are in nature reserves
that most
people think are 'preserved'.
Lee
|
| Re:
IVORY-BILL! |
fores-@earthlink.net |
| Apr
29, 2005 20:35 PDT |
They don't know. All clear sightings were of a male. There was
one possible
glimpse of a female, but it was not clear. It sounded like the
viewing area
might not have been the main territory though. Obviously very
secretive bird,
at least the ones that survived, the Tanner study said they were
noisy and tame,
as 60 people given 14 months had a total of not much over a
handful of brief
few seconds long sightings. Maybe some of the LA and FL
sightings are real too.
Someone said they heard it in Mississippi I think a few years
back in some of the
primest forest they had seen left in a southern swap, but they
also saw loggers moving
into the area. I think it's been all cut.
|
| Re:
IVORY-BILL! |
Gregory |
| Apr
30, 2005 07:01 PDT |
The loss of the true Southern forest to logging and other human
technologies such as the D-9 Cat is surely one of the great
tragedies to
befall Wild Nature in North America (where does one even start
in terms of
a list?). Larry writes of loggers moving into a Miss. swamp
where there was
an apparent sighting of IOBW. Hell, we still haven't learned
from the
tragedy that befell the Singer Tract, where James Tanner did all
his IOBW
field work with the species.
Alan Gregory
PA Wildlands Recovery Project
|
| Re:
IVORY-BILL! |
dbhg-@comcast.net |
| May
01, 2005 05:44 PDT |
Alan:
One of the great human failures of
conscience has been our gross insensitivity to what we are doing
to the Earth and its life forms. It can get very pretty
depressing thinking about our performance as a species. We take
comfort in out small victories to offset the disappointment of
our huge defeats. Still, we have to keep trying.
Bob
|
| Ivory-Billed
Woodpecker Habitat |
Edward
Frank |
|
May
03, 2005 19:05 PDT |
ENTS,
There is a nice Landsat image of the Cache River basin in
Arkansas showing
the habitat where the recent sightings of the Ivory Billed
Woodpecker
occurred. The full image is about 4.5 MB in size.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=16896
The text from the page reads:
Surrounded by farmland, crossed by an interstate highway, and
located less
than 75 miles from Arkansas’ capital and largest city, the
55,000-acre
Cache River National Wildlife Refuge hardly seems wilderness
enough to be
harboring any secrets. But between 2004 and 2005, this small
refuge within
Arkansas’ “Big Woods” revealed just how valuable a
treasure it hides in its
secret cache: the ivory-billed woodpecker, which had been
presumed extinct
for 60 years.
In this image from NASA’s Landsat 7 satellite, acquired on
December 23,
2001, the dense vegetation of swampy bottomland forests,
sloughs, oxbow
river bends, and bayous in the Cache River National Wildlife
Refuge makes a
dramatic contrast to the geometric checkerboard of farmlands.
Ground that
is bare or sparsely vegetated appears pinkish tan. The dense
(but leafless
in winter) vegetation of the refuge’s tupelo and cypress
forests appears
dark gray. When you look carefully (particularly in the
high-resolution
image), the forests are interwoven with swampy areas that appear
lighter
gray. A large swath of this gray swampy area runs through the
narrow strip
of the refuge that follows the Deview Bayou northeast of the
large
protected area near image center. Interstate 40 cuts diagonally
across the
southern part of this large tract of land.
Although there had been no confirmed sightings of the woodpecker
that
earned the colloquial nickname “The Lord God
Bird”—supposedly because of
people’s exclamations when encountering the strikingly colored
bird with
its three-foot wingspan—several unconfirmed reports since the
last
documented sighting in the 1940s kept sufficient hope alive for
the bird to
still be listed in most field guides as ‘probably extinct.’
Scientists do not yet know whether the ivory bill observed in
the half a
dozen or sightings since February 2004 is one bird among a small
breeding
population or if the bird is one of a few lone survivors who
will be the
last of their kind. To read more about the near total
eradication of the
ivory-billed woodpecker and its habitat in the U.S. Southeast,
the
rediscovery of the species, and plans to protect and expand its
habitat,
visit the Website of the Cornell Ornithology Lab, which co-led
the
verification study with scientists from the Nature Conservancy
and other
federal, state, and local agencies and organizations.
NASA image by Robert Simmon, based on Landsat 7 data provided by
the Global
Land Cover Facility
Edward Frank
|
| RE:
IVORY BILL!!! |
Rory
Nichols |
| May
06, 2005 23:35 PDT |
Ahoj, Ents.
First off, that is truly awesome that the Ivory bill is alive!
In the words
of Stone Cold Steve Austin: "OOOHHHHHH HEEELLLLLL
YYEEEEAAAAHHHH!!!!"
But I want to know if Ms. Norton will be stepping on the toes of
her amigos?
Is logging still prevalent in the area? How much of the original
habitat
remains? Isn't it funny they can use the Ivory bill as something
to make
them appear to be not all that bad while they scrap the road less
rule? I
hate to think what Alaska's governor will do.
Does anyone know about the Ivory bill in Cuba? I never knew they
lived there
until I heard it on NPR. Are there swampy cypress like
ecosystems there too?
Instead of the Ivory bill being the "southern spotted
owl," I'm curious if
those who are not particularly pro environment can somehow twist
this
around to make it seem that there are a lot more of everything
out there
somewhere and that scientists purposely don't tell us this just
so they can
lock up more land.
Rory Nichols
|
| RE:
IVORY BILL!!! |
edward
coyle |
| May
07, 2005 10:18 PDT |
Rory,
The Ivory bill is reported to have been wiped out in Cuba. The
island got
whomped by a severe hurricane (I don't remember which one) that
flattened a
lot of the remaining mature forest, and there wasn't much left
of that due
to logging.
Do a couple remain? It is less likely than in our deep southern
swamps. The
habitat for them is more restricted, and has been intensely
searched. But we
have been surprised before.
The Ivory bill has been reported, and reliably so, by several
people in the
U.S. during the last 20 years. I have chased leads myself, but
to no avail.
Perhaps this winter will find me again searching for the bird I
knew wasn't
gone.
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