An Ivory-billed Update

n the December issue of Birding, we Alan Wormington, an experienced respect to who reported on the two-person team birder who is a former member of the gets notified. Irecruited to begin searching for American Birding Association The missing part Ivory -billed in Louisiana. Checklist Committee and the editorial of the plan is the That team has been expanded to six board of North American . really important one, persons, scheduled to begin searching Team members will carry video cam- namely what the State of the vast bottomland woods of the eras for documentation, if and when Louisiana and Pearl River Wildlife Management Area needed. At some point they will be federal agencies do with in Louisiana on 17 January. joined by writer Jonathan Rosen, who respect to public access to GEORGE WEST Funding for the search is being pro- last year wrote for The New Yorker on the area. They're working vided by Carl Zeiss Sports Optics, a recen Ivoty-billed reports. A documen- on a plan to regulate division of Carl Zeiss Optical, Inc. Six tary film maker from New York also access. One thing for sure is that we adventurers signed on after Zeiss will spend time with the team. He won't be keeping any discovery a upped its original offer of $4,000 to plans to examine the continuing pull of secret, only perhaps the precise loca- $10,000. this on our imaginations. tion within the Pearl River WMA. The team plans to stay on the job for There also is an Ivory-billed “We recognize that keeping a secret 30 good-weather days, if possible. Woodpecker Search Planning Team. Its would be impossible, and pointless, in Team members are: members are Dr. J. V. (Van) Remsen, my opinion,” he said. Richard L. Knight, one of professor of biological sciences at The location itself lessens the prob- Tennessee's most active and experi- Louisiana State University and curator lem of any site being overrun with enced birders, author of The Birds of of birds at its Museum of Natural people who want to see a bird brought Northeast Tennessee (1994). Science, the six searchers, two repre- back from the dead. “Navy Seals train Martjan Lammertink and Utami sentatives from the Louisiana in the Pearl River area; it's vast and Setiorini-Lammertink, who over the Department of Wildlife & Fisheries intimidating,” Dr. Remsen said. “That past several years have studied wood- (Steve Shively and Nancy would limit any birder avalanche pri- peckers in Indonesia, mainly on Higginbotham), David Kulivan (of the marily to the area's perimeter. Borneo. They have experience survey- original sighting), Dr. Vernon Wright However, what actually happens in ing for that occur in low (LSU School Forestry, Wildlife & terms of access is in the hands of densities in tropical swamps, man- Fisheries; statistician and veteran of government agencies.” groves, and lowland forests. Earlier, recent Pearl River searches), Dr. Keith Dr. Remsen said that his hopes that Martjan made extensive searches for Ouchley (Louisiana Nature the search for a bird most people con- the Ivory-billed Woodpecker in Cuba Conservancy), Alison R. Styring (LSU sider extinct are “up slightly after look- and for the Imperial Woodpecker in Department of Biological Sciences and ing at the impressive satellite imagery . Museum of Natural Science; doctoral from the area and seeing yet another David Luneau (Professor of student using woodpecker census tech- report from several years ago, with Electronics and Computers, University niques in her dissertation); and Dr. some credibility, suspiciously close to of Arkansas at Little Rock), who Jerome A. Jackson (Florida Gulf Coast the location of the Kulivan sighting.” already has spent extensive time University; perhaps the world's leading Final Note: December's article searching the area. He will be deploy- authority on the history and biology of referred to the seminal study of Ivory- ing electronic recording devices to the Ivory-billed Woodpecker). billed Woodpeckers in the 1930s by Dr. detect woodpeckers. So, what happens if the searchers James J. Tanner. It may have been my Peter McBride, a habitat biologist find a bird? own name which prompted a name who did his thesis research on the “Let's hope we have this problem to error there. His correct name was ( face,” said Dr. Remsen. “We have James T. Tanner, not James J. Tanner. magellanicus), and has extensive field established an official protocol to be research experience in several areas of used if someone sees and tapes a bird,” – James J. Williams North America and South America. he said. “There is a chain of steps with Associate Editor, Birding

62 Birding • February 2002