Second Chances

About sixty years ago, we silly Americans lost something. This is all we have left of him:


The Ivory-billed Woodpecker (Campephilus principalis) was last positively identified in the US in the 1930s. Ever since then, there have been random, unverified sightings scattered throughout the deep south; due to the Ivory-billed's similarity to the more common Piliated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus), ornithologists have long refuted any such claims as misidentifications. Prior to the Civil War, the deep south was full of the bayoued woodlands and oxbow lakes that constitute the Ivory-billed's optimal habitat. The so-called "Lord God Birds" (because when you see one, you can't help but say "Lord God, what a bird!") thrived on giant beetles that burrow under the bark of old-growth trees--many of which are over a thousand years old.

After "the War of Northern Agression," as Bobby Harrison (more on him later) called it, northern logging companies bought up thousands of acres of southern swampland at pennies per acre. Within a matter of decades, hundreds of acres of bayou, whole ecosystems, even, had been decimated. Along with them died the Ivory-billed Woodpecker.

But a small group of believers have clung to the hope that the Ivory-billed still exists. And recently, some of those hopeful birders have discovered that the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, too, is clinging--to survival. On February 11, 2004, native Arkansan Gene Sparling was duck-hunting in the Big Woods, a swampy, forested area of central Arkansas. Suddenly a large, black and white bird flew in front of him. Sparling suspected that it was a Ivory-billed. His descriptions of the bird convinced a biology professor from Cornell and a photography professer from Oakwood of the same. On February 27, 2004, Sparling led life-long birders Tim Gallagher and Bobby Harrison back into the bayou in search of a coveted sighting of the bird.

They got their wish. Since that day, several fleeting, but verified, sightings of the bird have been made. Sound and video recordings have even been taken that have confirmed the bird's existence. At least one male Ivory-billed Woodpecker is alive and well in Arkansas, indicating that a breeding pair must have existed sometime since the early 1990s (the birds live approximately 15 years). And more are suspected to live in Louisiana, Texas, South Carolina, and other areas throughout the south.


We oil-burning, tree-wasting, resource-draining, Americans don't often have chances like this one to change our ways. What was lost has been found; opportunities like that don't come along every day. Back in the early 1900s, people coveted stuffed mounts of the remarkable Lord God Bird enough to shoot them en masse. Laying eyes on the shy birds was almost as much of a challenge as shooting them in flight. Between our greedy ecosystem devastation (many of the trees were cut to make Singer sewing machines at the turn of the 20th century) and careless hunting, we have actively caused this bird's demise.

Now those of us who care can learn a lesson from the Ivory-billed. We have the opportunity to protect him and many others of God's beautiful creation from those who would destroy them or their habitats.

Have we learned our lesson? After all, second chances are rare. Kinda like the Ivory-billed.

For more information, check out the official Ivory-billed Woodpecker's rediscovery site: http://www.birds.cornell.edu/ivory/