This may be of little interest to anyone else, but I thought it was wonderful news when I heard that biologists have discovered that a bird long thought to be extinct still survives in the swamps along the Mississippi river in Arkansas. The bird is a magnificent nineteen inch long black and white woodpecker called the Ivory-billed, and had last been seen in 1944. It has a three foot wingspan, and its large size made it especially vulnerable to the loss of habitat it suffered due to logging in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
There was hope that some of the birds had survived in Louisiana, but no one was able to confirm their existence. A team of ornithologists searching the Big Woods region of Arkansas, however, discovered the woodpecker there about a year ago but kept their find secret so as not to incite an influx of birders into the region. They finally submitted the results of their study of the Ivory-billed to Science which is going to publish their report in a future issue.
The Departments of Interior and Agriculture have already promised millions of dollars toward protecting and hopefully increasing the numbers of this beautiful creature. Like the recovery efforts which are restoring the populations of the California condor and the Whooping crane, it may be that similar efforts will make the Ivory-billed woodpecker another conservation success story.
