Passport to Texas

This is Passport to Texas

In April 2005 a national announcement proclaimed the Ivory-billed woodpecker, considered extinct, had been re-discovered in an area called the Big Woods of Arkansas.

06—And it was definitely the most exciting news that anyone can remember in the birding circles.

Cliff Shackleford is a non-game ornithologist with Parks and Wildlife.

16—There have been a lot of skeptics that have seen the documentation – it’s a little fuzzy – but there have been lots of people going back to the site, and have had glimpses. But no one’s been able to secure that really golden shot of the bird.

Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Ivory-Billed Woodpecker research project put a team on the ground in Arkansas in 2005, and for 5 years searched there and eight other states in the Southeast US for this elusive bird.

20—The exciting thing is that this bird possibly has survived after sixty years of not being detected in the US; and the last sighting of the Ivory Billed Woodpecker in Texas was in November 1904. So, it’s been a long time since that bird has been in Texas. It occurred in the eastern third of the state, roughly, in mature river-bottom habitat.

Although Cornell did not find definitive evidence of a surviving ivory-bill population, the Lab continues to analyze data from the past five years.

Meantime, many east Texans claim to have seen Ivory-Billed Woodpeckers, but tomorrow we discuss a case of mistaken identity.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.