About

Earl Aagaard’s opinions about everything that interests him. Og also enjoys gardening, travel, reading, woodbutchery, and lots of other stuff.

Monthly Archives

Join Og's Mailing List

OgBlog.net

BACK FROM THE DEAD

The “Lord God Bird” (Ivory-billed Woodpecker) has been extinct for over half a century.

At least that’s what we’ve been told. Some folks have continued to DREAM, and INTENSIVE SEARCHESwere done as recently as 2002 in response to reports, but no definitive evidence of their continued existence turned up. According to

a minority of experts, that is still the case. But the birding world in general is exulting, because “the ivory-billed woodpecker, mourned as extinct for more than 60 years, had been found in the swamp forests of eastern Arkansas.” An EXCELLENT SUMMARY of the current situation is found in Smithsonian magazine. Beyond the fact that the Ivory-bill is actually alive, the best part of the story is that, espite the skeptics, hope for the future survival of this marvelous bird seems rational:

So far, no one in Arkansas has reported seeing more than one ivory-bill, always apparently a male, always alone. Could this be the last of his kind, a cruel taste of hope before the candle goes out? Maybe, but none of those who have been chasing Elvis through the Big Woods think it likely. If the woodpecker has lasted more than 60 years without our knowledge, the chance that we’ve now stumbled upon its very last member is remote. The searchers have combed only a small fraction of the huge and challenging swampland, and have yet to find his core territory or nighttime roost holes. Ivory-billed woodpeckers can live up to 30 years, so at least one pair were breeding in the past two decades. The odds are that a small, highly endangered population of ivory-bills exists.

And there is another, far more potent reason for hope. I’ve birded all over the country, but the Big Woods area was a revelation to me—a vast, beautiful chunk of wild land. The Southern bottomland hardwood forests of flooded cypress and tupelo swamps, and the seasonally wet uplands of oak and sweet gum, were some of the continent’s greatest landscapes. Their destruction was one of our great conservation tragedies. By World War II large tracts of forest were cut almost to the last stick, but they have, to a remarkable degree, risen anew from that wreckage. The trees are still relatively young compared with the 1,000-year-old monsters that once grew there. But in this part of the world trees grow fast, and some of the second-growth is now a century old.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/12 at 07:13 AM

Comments and reactions