Biologists Challenge Federal Conclusion that the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker is Extinct
In a paper not yet through review, 10 researchers cite evidence for the persistence of one of America's most elusive and spectacular birds
Please SUBSCRIBE to receive my posts by email (content always free so those who need it most can get it).
Ivory-billed woodpecker, 1935, Singer Tract, Louisiana, photo by Arthur A. Allen via American Bird Conservancy)
Updates marked below
Possible rediscoveries of vanished charismatic fauna always get the blood flowing - and debates raging.
Here we go again. Let the wild ornithological and ecological rumpus begin.
"Multiple lines of evidence indicate survival of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker in Louisiana." That's the title of a pre-peer-review paper posted on April 8 on bioRxiv - the free online archive and distribution service for unpublished biological research operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
The finding, coming from a 10-person team led by researchers at the National Aviary in Pittsburgh, is particularly dramatic given that, just last September, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service included this resplendent and long-vanished woodpecker, Campephilus principalis, in a batch of 23 species it planned to remove from the Endangered Species Act because they are gone forever. Case closed.
The ivory-billed bird even made the artwork for the news release:
[Addendum, May 11 - To be sure it's crystal clear, the ivory-billed woodpecker is not yet officially declared extinct by the Wildlife Service or removed from the Endangered Species List; review of public comments is still under way. See this agency page for the latest updates. The International Union for Conservation of Nature, keeper of the IUCN Red List, still has the species listed as critically endangered.]
The leader of the research team is Steven C. Latta, the director of conservation and field research at the National Aviary. The paper is the latest output from Project Principalis, an ongoing effort to find the woodpecker.
This is an initial post on the news and I'll add input from the authors and independent researchers as things unfold.
The proposed delisting of the woodpecker generated a wave of criticisms, including from Geoffrey Hill, a biology professor and the curator of birds at Auburn University, who said it was premature to take the ivory-billed woodpecker off the list. (He is not an author of the new paper.) On January 26, the Fish and Wildlife Service held an online hearing on its decision after a request was filed by Florida bird expert Matt Courtman. You can watch at the link below.
The core finding in the new paper is simple:
"The history of decline of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker is long, complex, and controversial. The last widely accepted sighting of this species in continental North America was 1944. Reports of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers have continued, yet in 2021 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed declaring the species extinct. We draw on 10 years of search effort, and provide trail camera photos and drone videos suggesting the consistent presence of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers at our study site. Data indicate repeated re-use of foraging sites and core habitat. We offer insights into behaviors of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker that contribute to difficulty in finding this species. We discuss results with regard to the value of accumulated evidence, and what repeated observations may indicate for continued survival of this iconic species."
Explore the images in the paper at the link above to get a sense of the challenge identifying this species at a distance. Here is one, comparing two images of birds photographed during this study (A and D) with two from the early 20th century confirmed to be the ivory-billed species.
Reproduced with permission of the paper authors
For decades, there's been a regular back and forth flow of research and assertions about this woodpecker's status. One big issue is the similarity to the far more abundant, and similarly beautiful, pileated woodpecker. I've queued up the Fish and Wildlife Service hearing video to illustrations showing the differences - created by the great bird-guide author and illustrator David Sibley.
In 2005, I joined my New York Times colleague, Jim Gorman, on the ivory-billed beat for awhile.
I love how Jack Hitt described the bird in a New York Times Magazine piece the following year: "The ivory-billed woodpecker is, essentially, Schrödinger's cat, the famous physics paradox in which a cat in a box is neither dead nor alive until you open the box."
Evidence of absence is a tough barrier.
Despite the thoroughness of the new paper, which I encourage you to read (and watch the two video clips), count me skeptical until independent experts have a go at the work. While at The Times, I also wrote about other apparent extinctions, one of which - the vanishing of Miss Waldron's red colobus monkey - appeared to be reversed after my initial story of the extinction made the front page.
Nonetheless, the tug of the possible is strong - not just because we all love mystery and the prospect of averted tragedy.
I think the attraction of potential rediscoveries of this sort lies in the prospect Homo sapiens might wash off a bit of the sense of culpability that comes with being intelligent enough to know how utterly destructive we've been.
Inserts, April 10 | Stuart Pimm of Duke University, one of the world's leading conservation biologists, said, "Of course I'd love for this to be true," but then offered these thoughts:
"My concerns are these and they apply variously to other extremely rare species and putative species, such as Nessie and Big Foot. Very small populations have a very high probability of extinction because of demographic accidents. A pair has only a 50% chance of producing a male and female in the next generation. One needs a lot of pairs to allow populations to play this game of roulette and survive for decades — and that’s before one accounts for the massive risks of inbreeding. The story of Florida panthers is well known, and Sonny and I have published on its genetic rescue. That population was in deep trouble when it was down to 30. [Relevant reading]
"So, where could these birds have survived? The authors claim there are a lot of places. I doubt it. One of the maps shows the state and its roads. There are very few places well away from roads. Many of them are massively converted and fragmented landscapes including plantations. The second map shows eBird coverage. The area just south of Baton Rouge looks to be the only plausible place where these birds could have hid for a century without flying across a major highway or turned up in front of eBirders."
Carl Safina, a conservation biologist and author, said this of the new paper:
"Zooming out a little it makes a case, albeit weak, for the existence of mystery and the need to conserve big swaths of connected habitat. It also highlights how the Endangered Species Act focuses on the floor, the minima (thereby assuring trouble), rather than having aspirations as does the Clean Water Act."
I agree with Carl that there's great value in the most basic realities - data aside. Spare room for wild things and good things will happen. Period. That's why I appreciated E.O. Wilson's "Half Earth" vision despite the many questions around the concept.
Insert April 12 | The evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne wrote a detailed deconstruct of the paper on his Why Evolution is True blog, drawing on insights from several colleagues, and closed his post with the following lines, the last of which is so damn true (bold face added):
"The conclusion is that old chestnut of scientific conclusions: 'More work needs to be done.' But one thing is for sure: this new work (which is ongoing) will make birders think twice about declaring the ivorybill extinct, and will spur new efforts to find it. Of course without a concerted effort to save or increase the habitat (wet bottomland forest), seeing the bird is not the same thing as saving it."
Watch
The Fish and Wildlife Service held a public online hearing on the proposed delisting of the ivory-billed woodpecker on January 26th:
Help expand Sustain What
Any young column needs the help of existing readers. Tell friends what I'm up to by forwarding this introductory post or sending an email here (substitute the addresses you're sending to for the dummy "revkin.revkin" address).
Thanks for commenting below or on Facebook.
Subscribe here free of charge if you haven't already.
Send me feedback (including corrections!), tips, ideas here.
Find my social media accounts, books and music in a click here. And please share Sustain What with solution-focused friends and colleagues!