NEWSFOCUS on March 15, 2011

ON 28 APRIL 2005, JOHN FITZPATRICK both 2004 and early 2005, and he speculates defend their objectivity, and say they have no told the world what he had been keeping that it has either flown elsewhere or died. doubts or regrets. Now, as the U.S. Fish and secret for more than a year. At the head- Skeptics think the mesmerizing ivorybill Wildlife Service (FWS) begins to assess the quarters of the Department of Interior in was never there to begin with and that the efficacy of the searches it funds, most birders Washington, D.C., flanked by two Cabinet Cornell team mistook other and ornithologists seem resigned that even if secretaries, Fitzpatrick announced a conser- and overinterpreted a blurry video. “Why an ivorybill was in Arkansas in 2004, the vation miracle. The majestic ivory-billed would you announce … one of the biggest chance to save the species is past. “I want to www.sciencemag.org —an emblem of southern old- things ever in North American ornithology hope against all odds,” says James Bednarz growth forests that was last seen during and not have concrete, irrefutable evi- of Arkansas State University in Jonesboro. World War II—still persisted in the Big dence?” asks Mark Robbins of the Univer- “But my scientific logic says it’s deep in the Woods of Arkansas. “In the world of - sity of Kansas in Lawrence. vortex of extinction.” ing,” he said, “nothing could have been To many critics, this is a story of good more hoped-for than this Holy Grail.” intentions gone awry and the power of belief, Fleeting glimpses It was an extraordinary claim and a rare amplified by secrecy. A top-notch team of sci- The largest woodpecker in the United States, piece of good news in conservation. It was entists was misled by hope, it seems to them, the ivorybill ( principalis) lost Downloaded from also a crowning achievement for Fitzpatrick, and buoyed by confidence that more searching practically all its old-growth habitat when director of Cornell University’s prestigious would bring the definitive photo. Fitzpatrick loggers cut down the bottomland forests of Lab of Ornithology, who had fielded proba- and his colleagues reject those explanations, the southeastern United States. As the bly the most intense search for a bird ever. became scarce in the 1880s, ornithologists and The 14-month stealth mission yielded sev- birders raced to shoot the survivors for their eral eyewitness sightings, sound recordings, collections. By the 1960s, most ornithologists and a video, published online in Science that were convinced the ivory-billed woodpecker day. “We have conclusive proof that the was extinct. Yet every few years, a hunter or ivory-billed woodpecker has survived into birder would announce a sighting. Experts the 21st century,” Fitzpatrick declared in a assumed that they were misidentifying a video released by Cornell. Private donors and (Dryocopus pileatus), a federal agencies opened their wallets. The large species still abundant in the bottomland world celebrated a second chance to save the forests. In 1966, bird author John Dennis awe-inspiring bird. reported seeing an ivorybill in a swamp in And yet after more than 2 years of her- Icon. Logging of east Texas. He swam naked through the southeastern forests led culean efforts and sometimes vituperative southeastern forests led water and managed to get a close look, yet to the disappearance of debate, indisputable evidence of the bird’s ivorybills, such as this no one believed him. existence has not emerged. Fitzpatrick still one, photographed in Even a respected scientist caught the fever. believes his team saw an ivorybill, although Louisiana in the 1930s. George Lowery Jr. of Louisiana State Univer-

he never did himself, in the Big Woods in sity (LSU) in Baton Rouge, past president of ORNITHOLOGY OF LAB CORNELL COURTESY TANNER, T. JAMES LAMMERTINK; MARTJAN BOTTOM): TO (TOP CREDITS

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mark studying endangered Florida scrub jays was also convinced that if he didn’t act, the and helping to create a national wildlife bird would truly go extinct. There had been no refuge to save scant remaining habitat. In previous exhaustive searches, he points out. 1983, as curator of birds at the Field Museum Cornell had the tip, the resources, and the in Chicago, Illinois, he was awarded AOU’s gumption. “Nobody else had the balls to do highest prize for research. it,” Fitzpatrick says. After a month in the Pearl River, neither He insisted on secrecy—a decision that group had found anything. Late-night TV would later bring the team criticism for being comedian Jay Leno mocked the search by insular and insufficiently skeptical. Fitz- reading a newspaper headline: “Researchers patrick feared that if word of the search got fail to find extinct bird.” Eventually, the out, “the place would become Coney Island Louisiana Ornithological Society dismissed with birders piling in all over the place.” Ulti- the Kulivan sighting. Still, the Cornell team mately, some two dozen police officers were won kudos from other researchers for its cau- ready to protect the habitat after the announce- tious analysis of their sound recordings, which ment, but there was no onslaught. The Nature turned out to have captured gunshots, not the Conservancy, which was involved in the distinctive double-knocks made by ivorybills. search, had its own concerns. It had been buy- Despite heading home empty-handed, the ing land to conserve bottomland hardwood experience fired up Fitzpatrick. “The chance forest and feared that news of the search to be there was a dream come true,” he says. would drive up prices. More volunteers arrived, all signing legal Secret mission confidentiality documents. The cover story Another opportunity arose just 2 years later. for curious locals was that they were doing a Fitzpatrick was in his office at 8:30 a.m. on biological inventory for The Nature Conser- 1 March 2004 when Tim Gallagher came in, vancy. The bird was code-named Elvis. on March 15, 2011 wild-eyed. Gallagher, an avid birder who Between 5 and 11 April, there was a flurry of the American Ornithologists’ Union, brought edits Cornell’s Living Bird magazine, had sightings, all by lone, amateur observers. Con- two photographs of ivory-billed woodpeckers just returned from the Cache River National cerned about the lack of corroboration, Jeffrey to AOU’s annual meeting in 1971. Lowery Wildlife Refuge in Arkansas, where he and a Wells of Cornell, the logistical manager, believed that the photos, taken by an acquain- friend had seen an ivorybill. Fitzpatrick decided to double up the observers. After that, tance, were real, but other ornithologists grilled him for details and finally asked: there was just one more sighting. On 25 April, thought the birds looked like posed speci- “What are the chances that the bird you saw David Luneau—an electrical engineer at the mens. His reputation was tarnished. “I wish was not an ivory- www.sciencemag.org now that I had said nothing about these birds,” billed woodpecker?” Believer. Amid accusations he later wrote. Gallagher replied, of self-deception, John None of this boded well for David Kulivan, “I’m absolutely pos- Fitzpatrick stands by his a forestry student at LSU. He spotted what he itive that this bird team’s conclusion that they thought were two ivory-billed woodpeckers was an ivory-billed found at least one while turkey hunting near the Pearl River on woodpecker.” ivorybill in Arkansas. 1 April 1999 (not an auspicious day of Fitzpatrick imme- the year to report seeing ivorybills). He diately sent Gallagher Downloaded from recounted the sightings to ornithologist back to the swamp James Van Remsen, curator of birds at LSU’s with a top graduate Museum of Natural Science, who was per- student. Then in mid- suaded enough by Kulivan’s account to March, he convened organize a search. Zeiss Sport Optics funded a meeting of the Sap- a well-publicized effort in 2002. suckers, a crack team Cornell also mounted a small expedition, of birders from Cor- led by Fitzpatrick. There may have been no nell that competes in one better placed to save the ivory-billed the World Series of woodpecker than Fitzpatrick, who is shrewd, Birding. Several days ambitious, and decisive. “Fitz never goes later, they were tromping and paddling University of Arkansas, Little Rock, who par- halfway on anything.” says Frank Gill, who through the Arkansas swamp. But during ticipated in the Pearl River search—and his retired as chief scientist of the National that week, the only woodpeckers they saw brother-in-law filmed a 4-second glimpse of a Audubon Society in New York City. “He can were pileateds. The team was frustrated, bird fleeing a tree. It has become without move mountains in a way that no other and most of them had to return to their day doubt the most analyzed bird video in history. ornithologist can do.” A Harvard graduate who jobs at the lab. Like the others, Fitzpatrick was initially went on to a Ph.D. at Princeton, Fitzpatrick But Fitzpatrick decided to press ahead, disappointed by the video’s quality. Although bushwhacked through the Amazon in the having great confidence in Gallagher’s sight- the team was convinced from the sightings 1970s and ’80s, discovering seven new ing. “I have to put my faith in those people that the bird was there, and they had intrigu-

CREDIT: JASON KOSKI/CORNELL UNIVERSITY PHOTOGRAPHY UNIVERSITY KOSKI/CORNELL JASON CREDIT: species of birds. He made an even bigger able to separate fact from fiction,” he says. He ing recordings of double knocks and “kent”

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