Black Pumas in the News and the Latest Black Panther Report

I have been reading a couple of book concurrenly over the last week, or so, Lost Animals: Extinction and the Photographic Record by Errol Fuller and The Ghost with Trembling Wings by Scott Weidensaul. The former is a beautiful, but very melancholy, look at several species that are extinct and gone forever. Species like the Carolina Parakeet, Yangtze River Dolphin, Eskimo Curlew, and Passenger Pigeon are discussed as are a handful of species that, while considered extinct by mainstream science, may yet be clinging to life in the more remote corners of the planet. The Ivory-billed woodpecker and the Thylacine are two such examples of these types of animals. The book is beautiful and full of photographs. There is something about the black and white images that is truly haunting. The emotions I feel when looking at them are jarring. Guilt, sadness, anger…they are all present and mixed up in a cauldron of sentiment that is impossible to ignore. The latter is a book about loss, recovery, endurance and resurrection. The book is enthralling and hard to put down. It is in this book that something caught my eye…

In Chapter 5 of his book, Weidensaul discusses anomalist cat sightings. Having grown up in the Appalachians, he is particularly interested in cougar sightings. The Eastern cougar is thought to have gone extinct around the turn of the century. Still, Weidensaul points out, people continue to report sightings and, from time to time dead pumas turn up in the region. Clearly, there are still a few cougars in the East, the author concludes. The discussion was fairly typical up this point: How many? Where did they come from? Were they ever really completely gone in the first place? Etc. Then I read the following passage:

“How reliable are those eyewitness sightings? One measure of their veracity might be the large number – between a quarter and a third – that involve black panthers. This is more troubling than it may at first appear. While black leopards and jaguars are fairly common, I know of only two documented cases of black cougars, nor is melanism at all common among North America’s other wild cats.”

Did you catch it? Weidensaul wrote “I know of only two documented cases of black cougars…” Well, that is news to me. In my book Shadow Cats: The Black Panthers of North America, I discuss the cougar as a possible suspect in the black panther mystery, but point out that there has never been an officially documented case of a melanistic puma. There are stories to be sure – many of which I discuss in the book - some of which are very old, but they are stories only. I have sent Mr. Weidensaul an email requesting some additional detail about these two documented cases of a black cougar. If he replies, I will update you here.

The question of whether or not pumas can be black came up again a day or two later when a reader of the blog sent me a link to a very interesting article. You may have read of the recent discovery of a ‘Lost City’ in Honduras. The ruins, built by an unknown civilization and uncovered in 2015, have yielded many items of archaeological significance since excavation began in earnest. Somewhat surprisingly, they have proven to be home to a treasure trove of rare wildlife as well.  Already, three species previously thought extinct, including the pale-face bat, have been found. It was the first paragraph of the article, however, that struck me with the force of a baseball bat.  It reads:

“Trond Larsen was night-searching for rare frogs and insects in the Lost City recently discovered within Honduras’ Mosquitia Rainforest when his headlamp illuminated something surprising: a curious black puma. Larsen, a researcher who led this February 2017 expedition into the so-called Lost City of the Monkey God, walked away from the encounter unscathed, but that puma was but a bite of the magnificence Larsen and his team would find.”

I know you caught it that time.  A black puma was seen among the ruins of a lost city in the heart of the Honduran rainforest. The witness was none other than Trond Larsen, of the Conservation International’ Rapid Assessment Program. Yet, nothing else is spoken about this remarkable sighting. In fact, the way it reads, it seems there is nothing remarkable about it at all.

What is going on here? Do black cougars exist or not? Why does no one seem interested in following up sightings like that of Trond Larsen? Are scientists so specialized that remarkable discoveries outside of their area of expertise are going unrecognized?

Finally, I will leave you with the latest credible black panther sighting reported to me. 

Reported 6/29/19

"Hi, Mike - really enjoy your blog. I don't know how meaningful this report is to your work, but I thought I'd send it to you as a datapoint.

In the summer of 2008 or 2009 I was riding my bike down a gravel road in Frisco just after dawn. About 40 yards ahead of me I watched a big black cat casually run across the road and then sail over a barbed wire fence into some trees. I'm not a good judge of animal mass, but it was about waist high, probably 5 or 6 feet from head to tail. It happened so quickly and was too far away for me to get any details other than the fact that it had a very long thick tail, was very dark, and moved like a cat. Coincidentally, this occurred next to a creek in Frisco called Panther Creek.

Here is the spot that I saw the cat: https://www.google.com/maps/@33.2038699,-96.8718794,3a,75y,262.94h,78.47t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sbJvie1BRm3X-8zb070OC0Q!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

The fence on the left wasn't there at the time, but the water treatment plant did exist. There weren't nearly as many subdivisions in the area either. Lots of open land back then.

Foolishly, I kept riding down the road and looked for it when I crossed the point where I saw it jump, but never saw it. For some reason, I thought I'd be able to out run it on my bike if I needed to, but I'll bet I would have been an exciting hunt for her if she decided to chase me down.

I thought for a long time what it could have been, thinking maybe it was just the silhouette of something else, which made it appear black. But, I was riding westward just after dawn when I saw it, so it definitely wasn't back-lit. I also spotted it before it entered the trees, so it would have been in the sunlight.

Also, I thought the sighting you posted on your blog from Plano about that same time was interesting. Maybe it was the same animal.”

- Brian Taylor

TCH Comment:  Brian is right in that Frisco has boomed over the last decade. On the surface, a big cat sighting of any kind there seems ludicrous, but a sighting from 10-11 years ago is another matter. The description given is fairly typical: big, very dark to black, long thick tail.  The area has been the source of black panther reports in the past (see distribution map). Too, I have had a handful of reports that have come from areas very close to water treatment plants, which I find interesting. I will be adding this sighting to my Black Panther Sighting Distribution Map. 

To wrap it up, in the last week I have become aware of no less than three sightings of black pumas referred to by recognized men of science and academia. Again, I am making an effort to get more information on these sightings. I’ll let you all know how that goes.

If you would like to know more about the black panther mystery, check out my book, Shadow Cats: The Black Panthers of North America. You can hit the link to the right or click here for more information. 

Sources:

Fuller, Errol. Lost Animals: Extinction and the Photographic Record. Princeton University Press, 2014.

Fuller, Errol. Lost Animals: Extinction and the Photographic Record. Princeton University Press, 2014. Page 126.

Funds, Yessenia. “Exploration of 'Lost City' in Honduras Uncovers Trove of Rare Life Forms.” Gizmodo, 21 June 2019, www.gizmodo.com.au/2019/06/exploration-of-lost-city-in-honduras-uncovers-trove-of-rare-life-forms/.

On the Ivory-billed Woodpecker

During a recent interview I was asked why the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, among all the species driven to extinction by human behavior, has remained so much in the consciousness of the American public? To answer the question I referred back to something I wrote several years ago in a review for the movie Ghost Bird.

Certainly, it is a striking and beautiful creature but I think it is more than that. The Ivory-Bill offers hope of redemption for we Americans who, while we loved the forests and wild places of our continent, failed to be good stewards of the incredible resources with which we were blessed. True, our failures are magnified by the extinction of such a magnificent bird. But if, somehow, the Ivory-Bill has survived then we would have an opportunity to make things right. We would have a second chance. Until, and unless, we get that chance we will be forever haunted by this ghost bird.

I continue to pray that the Ivory-billed woodpecker survives somewhere in the bottom-lands of the Deep South and that we will get that second chance.

Classic Photo of Ivory-billed Woodpecker

The photo below was taken in the doomed Singer Tract in Louisiana by James Tanner in 1938. The photo shows an ivory-billed nestling as it rests on the shoulder of Tanner's friend, J.J. Kuhn. This is one of a series of photos taken by Tanner that day that are thought to be the only shots ever captured of a ivory-billed woodpecker nestling.

It is heartbreaking to think that this nestling was likely among the last of its kind.

Footage of Extinct Imperial Woodpecker Released

Most people with even a passing interest in nature have heard of the plight of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. The sad tale of how this magnificent bird became extinct, due mainly to loss of suitable habitat, is well known. What is not as well known is the story of an equally magnificent, and even bigger, woodpecker that once thrived in the Sierra Madre Occidental – a rugged mountain range stretching 900 miles, or so, south from the U.S.-Mexico border – and in the mountains of central Mexico.

The Imperial Woodpecker (Campephilus imperialis) was truly a magnificent bird. It was (is?) the biggest woodpecker in the world. Males could grow up to 24 inches long. They were strikingly colored. Males had a red-sided crest but were mostly black in color with the exception of inner primary feathers, secondary feathers, and a scapular stripe, which were white. Females were similarly colored but the crest was solid black and recurved at the top. It had obvious similarities to the more famous Ivory-billed Woodpecker and was actually sometimes called the “Mexican Ivory-bill.”



The Imperial Woodpecker was common up until the mid 1950’s when habitat loss began to take it’s toll. The last confirmed sighting of this species occurred in 1956. Amateur ornithologist William Rhein, now deceased, captured 85-seconds of film of an Imperial Woodpecker foraging for insects on old growth pine trees and flying from one spot to another. The footage, a bit jumpy due to the fact that Rhein was riding on a mule as he shot it, is considered to be 85 seconds of pure gold by the birding world. The film has now been made available to the public for the first time. You can view it here.

The film had been in the hands of the Rhein family for years before it was tracked down by Martjan Lammertink of Cornell University. Lammertink became aware of the existence of the footage only after he came across an old letter that mentioned the film in the University’s archives. He tracked down William Rhein 10 years ago at his home in Pennsylvania and was able to view the film. Rhein’s nephew donated the film to Cornell upon his Uncle’s death in 2006.

Living Bird magazine editor Tim Gallagher said, “ It’s amazing that the bird does so many different things in 85 seconds. It’s a gold mine of information about this bird.”

Lammertink, who authored a paper about the footage published in the November issue of The Auk said, “It is stunning to look back through time and see the magnificent Imperial Woodpecker moving through its old growth forest environment. It is heartbreaking to know that both the bird and the forest are gone."

Gallagher and Lammertink traveled to the spot where the film was shot just a year or so ago but, not surprisingly, found no trace of the bird. Nearly all of the old growth forest had been cleared and the area is now the territory of drug cartels.

“It’s a very dangerous place,” Gallagher said. “There were a lot of people with AK-47s.”

As I watched the footage of the Imperial Woodpecker I found myself overtaken with a powerful melancholy. To know that this most magnificent of all woodpeckers is likely gone forever is sickening. To view the Rhein footage is both an incredible gift, as we can see exactly how the bird moved, flew, and went about it’s daily business, and a terrible reminder of just how badly we humans have failed at being good stewards of the natural world. I hope that we learn our lesson soon.

There are no second chances.

Sources:

Cornell University. "Study analyzes only known footage of the largest woodpecker that ever lived." ScienceDaily, 26 Oct. 2011. Web. 7 Nov. 2011.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45064203/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/long-gone-woodpecker-lives-again-newfound-film/

Auburn Professor Confident the Ivory-billed Woodpecker Still Exists

Things have been pretty quiet on the Ivory-billed woodpecker front of late. The excitement of the Cornell University expedition into the Big Woods area of Arkansas has died down and the disgust over the whole Daniel Rainsong saga has abated. It does seem, however, that there have been some things going on quietly behind the scenes. An article by John Fleming on The Anniston Star website tells the story of Auburn Professor Geoff Hill and his experiences searching for the Ivory-billed woodpecker. You can read the article in its entirety here but I will give you the gist of it below.

Geoff Hill, a professor of ornithology, knows he saw an Ivory-billed woodpecker on several occasions back in 2005 and 2006 while researching in the swamps and marshes of the Florida Panhandle. His team, accomplished birders all, reported at least 14 sightings of their own. The team also compiled hundreds of recordings of the distinctive call the Ivory-billed woodpecker is known to have made. You would think these sightings and recordings would have the birding world bouncing off the walls in excitement.You would be wrong.

“It proves nothing,” Hill said.



Hill also has a video clip shot during that time in Florida that he says features a living Ivory-billed woodpecker. He says the clip is short and the resolution is not great. He does mention that you can hear one of his grad students, Brian Rolek, say, “Ivory-bill,” on the video. In the next breath, however, Hill dismisses the video as not being good enough to provide the concrete proof needed by science to conclusively show that this ghost bird still exists. He is convinced the Ivory-bill still lives but knowing it and proving it are very different things.

Professor Hill’s team had to cease operations once funding ran out in 2006; however, another group traveled to Florida in 2008 to look for the largest of all woodpeckers and Holy Grail of the ornithological world. The group included wildlife artist John Agnew who reported the following:

“About a hundred yards to the west of me, some pileated woodpeckers were making a racket, apparently involved in a territorial dispute. It was then that I saw a large dark woodpecker flying towards me from their direction. It landed on the far side of a cypress about 20 yards away. I thought that I might as well practice my photographic technique on this pileated woodpecker, and was raising the camera (a Nikon D80 with a 300mm lens) to focus when it took off and flew directly towards me. There would not be time to get the camera ready, so I just watched this magnificent bird fly. When it was about 15 feet overhead and nearly at my position, I realized that something was different. My eyes were drawn towards the brilliant white secondary feathers, their edges glowing in the morning sun. My subconscious mind was telling me that this was no pileated, but no alarm bells were ringing. I noted the red crest and a white stripe on the side of the head. The bird flew past me, and by the time I got the kayak turned around, it had gone on downstream. I sat a moment digesting what I had seen.”




Agnew is a veteran birder who is extremely familiar with the pileated woodpecker which is often mistaken for its Ivory-billed cousin. He says what he saw was an Ivory-billed woodpecker. He noted that the bird he saw had distinctive white trailing edges on the underside of its wings. This is a feature unique to the Ivory-billed woodpecker. Agnew’s fellow researcher Sally Wolliver saw what they think is the same bird shortly thereafter. No image was captured, however, and the status of the Ivory-billed woodpecker remains unchanged.

Geoff Hill remains a man conflicted. He is sure the Ivory-billed woodpecker still exists but afraid that the will to find it has gone. Too many regard funds spent on the search for the ghost bird to be a waste of money that could be better spent trying to preserve species that are in trouble but science knows still exist. In addition,the disappointment that has followed other promising leads has left a bad taste in the mouths of many. Hill understands these things well.

Still, Geoff Hill does not have a defeatist attitude. He remains realistically hopeful. This hope if fueled, in part, by one compelling photograph. During their research, Hill's team mounted game cameras in the forest pointing at suspected Ivory-billed woodpecker haunts. Over 7 million images, most of squirrels and small birds, including other woodpecker species, were captured. All of the pictures featured easily identifiable animals…except for one. It is this photo that continues to stoke his hope for the Ivory-billed woodpecker.

“Well, look at it,” Hill told the reporter Fleming while pointing at the image on his computer screen. “What is that? I don’t know, could be an Ivory-bill, could be a cormorant, could be herons. It’s like an inkblot. It gets us nowhere.” Still, he returns to the image over and over.



After reading the article, I felt that Geoff Hill’s hope was almost tangible. He is being very professional and measured in what he says as he realizes the evidence he has is not sufficient to prove this woodpecker still lives. Too, he has great regard for both Agnew and Wolliver and does not doubt that they saw an Ivory-billed woodpecker... maybe the last one on earth. But...

Believing it, knowing it, being able to prove it. It always comes back to that.

The article ends with Professor Hill repeating a by now familiar refrain.

“It doesn’t prove anything.”

"Ghost Bird" Now Available On DVD

Ghost Bird, the documentary about the search for the Ivory-billed woodpecker in Arkansas, is now available on DVD.

I had the privilege of screening the film last May and found it to be very well done. You can read my review of the movie here. The film does not try to convince anyone that the Ivory-billed woodpecker does or does not exist; rather, it is about hope. The hopes of the people of Brinkley, Arkansas that the rediscovery of this species will help revive their dying town, the hopes of the Cornell researchers that they will soon be able to confirm the wildlife discovery of the century, and the hope of redemption for all of us who, while we loved the forests and wild places of our continent, failed to be good stewards of the incredible resources with which we were blessed.

I doubt you will be able to pick up a copy of this film at your local video store but you can order it here. If you have a birder in your family it would make a fantastic Christmas present. I highly recommend it.

Something Cool

I think this is about as cool as a a license plate can get. If I lived in Arkansas I would have this plate on my truck.

Movie Review: Ghost Bird

"When the last individual of a race of living things breathes no more, another Heaven and another Earth must pass before such a one can be again."

- William Beebe

I have just had the privilege of screening the new Ivory-Billed Woodpecker documentary Ghost Bird. The film, written and directed by Scott Crocker, does not attempt to convince anyone that the Ivory-Bill does or does not still exist. Rather, it concentrates on the people involved in the search for this iconic bird and the hope it has generated in a small Arkansas town.

The film opens with video of the press conference where Gale Norton of the Department of the Interior, along with Dr. John Fitzpatrick, Director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, boldly declare that the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker has been rediscovered in the Big Woods wilderness near Brinkley, Arkansas. The scene quickly shifts to the small town of Brinkley where the news has awakened hope that the discovery will provide a desperately needed economic shot in the arm. Local business owners, the editor of the local newspaper, the mayor, and the head of the Chamber of Commerce are all interviewed and express hope that the discovery will be a boon to their individual endeavors and the town in general.



The scene then shifts to those most directly involved in the rediscovery of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker. David Luneau, Associate Professor at the University of Arkansas, tells the story of how he captured footage of what he and Cornell University officials believe to be an Ivory-Billed Woodpecker in flight. The footage was acclaimed by Cornell University as definitive proof of a surviving Ivory-Billed Woodpecker and is featured prominently in the film. Not everyone agreed, however. Dr. Jerome Jackson of Florida Gulf Coast University and Richard Prum of Yale University found enough room for doubt in the video to begin collaborating on a rebuttal paper. They later backed off their rebuttal upon hearing audio recordings made in the Big Woods area reputed to be Ivory-Bill in origin. The audio, according to Prum, was impressive; however, he has come to doubt that the audio recorded is actually an Ivory-Bill calling.

"Absence of Evidence is not evidence of absence."

- Dr. Carl Sagan, Donald Rumsfeld, et al.

I could go on about the debate back and forth between these groups as to whether the Luneau footage actually shows an Ivory-Billed Woodpecker but I won't. The film, to me, is about more than that. Particularly compelling to me were the sequences where Nancy Tanner, widow of acclaimed naturalist Dr. Jim Tanner, was interviewed. The story of how her deceased husband traveled over 48,000 miles attempting to document the few remaining Ivory-Bills in the south was fascinating. Particularly interesting was the tale of how Tanner, then a Cornell grad student, found a recently hatched Ivory-Bill in a forested section of land known as the Singer Tract and wanted to band it. He shimmied sixty feet up a tree and successfully banded the bird. To his horror, soon after descending the tree, the young woodpecker hopped out of his nest cavity and plunged to the ground. Dr. Tanner felt his activity had caused the death of this incredibly rare bird. However, Dr. Tanner found that the bird had survived the fall quite nicely and managed to climb back up the tree to place it back in its nest cavity. The picture of Jim Tanner (I presume it is Dr. Tanner in the photo) with this young Ivory-Bill perched atop his head is surreal. Other photos and videos of living Ivory-Bills shot by Dr. Tanner were featured and aroused a sort of melancholy in me. The pictures and video were stunning and the fact they were shot in black and white seemed to add to the effect that I was viewing a relic from a time gone by...a ghost. Mrs. Tanner also shared the story of how the Singer Company sold their heavily forested land to the Chicago Mill and Lumber Company. The land was designated for clear-cutting which would have been devastating to the hopes to save the Ivory-Bill. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and other interested parties managed to raise enough money to buy the Singer Tract back from the lumber company; however, they would not sell and the land was cleared. Mrs. Tanner shared a photo of the forest before cutting and the same land years later. The forest was completely gone. Only a soybean field remained where once had stood a pristine virgin forest. Seeing the two photos side by side was jarring...and sickening. Many believe that once the Singer Tract was logged it sealed the fate of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker forever. The failure to save the Singer Tract, and the Ivory-Billed Woodpeckers within it, led to the birth of the Nature Conservancy and, in 1973, the Endangered Species Act.

Several universities were visited where representatives showed their collections of Ivory-Billed Woodpeckers. There was something unsettling about seeing these preserved specimens laying in drawers and knowing that the very act of collecting them likely helped lead to their demise. Other, now extinct, species like the Passenger Pigeon, Carolina Parakeet, and Eskimo Curlew were also shown. It was hard to look at them. To view the specimens and know that mankind was directly responsible for the extinction of these species was disturbing. Somehow, though these species became extinct long before I was born, I felt shame. If the director, Mr. Crocker, hoped to elicit an emotional response from his audience with these sequences I would say he was very successful.



Also interviewed was Virginia Eckelberry. Her husband, the now deceased artist Don Eckelberry, is thought to be the last person to have seen a living Ivory-Billed Woodpecker in the wild. Mrs. Eckelberry shared the story of how her husband had been contracted by the Audubon Society to find and provide illustrations of the elusive woodpecker in 1944. He located one female Ivory-Bill, in the Singer Tract, and observed her for several days. His field sketches are remarkable and provide what seems to be the final glimpse of the species dubbed the "Lord God Bird." Again, one can't help but be saddened to think of this lone female, possibly the last of her kind, living out her life alone in the wilderness.

The film, which started by documenting the hope and nearly frenetic efforts of Brinkley, Arkansas residents to capitalize on the rediscovery of the Ivory-Bill, shifts back to the again sleepy town several years after the Luneau footage was shot. The Cornell University researchers have pulled out and the promise of an economic boom based on Ivory-Bill mania has sadly remained unfulfilled. A local resident is interviewed as he drives through the dwindling town. An abandoned mill, a closed Coca-Cola plant, and a defunct garment factory stand like sentinels overlooking a mostly boarded-up downtown business district. The Ivory-Billed Woodpecker Inn is soon to become a Super 8 Motel and hope seems to be fading. The Ivory-Bill is still depicted all over Brinkley, Arkansas in the form of billboards, shop signs, posters, and license plates. However, there is a sort of sadness to them by the end of the film. They now seem almost like Christmas decorations still out in mid January. They look the same but, somehow, the magic is gone.



Near the end of the movie a shot of a freight train leaving Brinkley is featured. I couldn't help but think it was symbolic of the hopes that the Ivory-Billed woodpecker, and, for that matter, the small town of Brinkley, can be saved. It is entirely possible it is too late for both. That train, it seems, may have indeed left the station.

Ghost Bird is not the sort of film that will make it to your local Cineplex but I highly recommend tracking down a copy and viewing it when you can. It is far more than a documentary about a woodpecker and is well worth your time. I enjoyed it immensely.

The Ivory-Billed Woodpecker remains the Holy Grail for birders everywhere. This majestic bird has captured the imagination of the public like few other species. Why is this? Certainly, it is a striking and beautiful creature but I think it is more than that. The Ivory-Bill offers hope of redemption for we Americans who, while we loved the forests and wild places of our continent, failed to be good stewards of the incredible resources with which we were blessed. True, our failures are magnified by the extinction of such a magnificent bird. But if, somehow, the Ivory-Bill has survived then we would have an opportunity to make things right. We would have a second chance. Until, and unless, we get that chance we will be forever haunted by this ghost bird.

"Thinly spread forest creatures, with very large areas within which they might be scattered, are destined to remain phantoms. Their existence will always be extremely challenging to confirm; their extinction will be essentially impossible to establish."

- Bill Pulliam

*Go to the Ghost Bird homepage to view the trailer and get more information on the film

*I would like to express my gratitude to Zane Grochelle for contacting me initially about screening, and possibly reviewing, the film. It was my honor to do so.

Cornell Ends Search For Ivory-Billed Woodpecker

Some sad news...

It seems that the Cornell Lab of Ornithology is officially giving up on the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. According to an article on the Discovery News website, written by Jorge Ribas, biologists are giving up their search for a remnant population of the legendary birds. The article, written by Jorge Ribas, can be read in its entirety here.

Ron Rohrbaugh, director of the Cornell Lab, said, "The preliminary conclusion we've come up with at this point is that it's unlikely that there are recoverable populations of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers in those places that have received significant search efforts over the past five years." Despite sighting reports and extensive searches in the Black Swamp of Arkansas no definitive evidence of the elusive woodpecker's existence has been found.

The searches were prompted by a video shot by David Luneau that, while a bit grainy, appeared to show a living IBW in flight. I have heard from a reliable source that most at Cornell believe the film does indeed show an Ivory-billed Woodpecker. I think this belief may be reflected in how Rohrbaugh worded his statement. He said that it was not likely there were "recoverable populations of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers." He did not say he believed the birds to be completely extinct or that the Luneau video did not show a living IBW. To the contrary, Rohrbaugh and his Cornell associates must have believed the film showed a genuine IBW to have spent so much time and money in its pursuit.

Personally, I believe the Ivory-billed Woodpecker is still out there. Whether there are enough birds left to successfully keep the species alive for ten or twenty more years I cannot say. However, if even one breeding pair is left there is hope.

There is always hope...

The Ivory-Billed Woodpecker Remembered

Below is a short video showing a story, seemingly aired on a PBS program, that recounts the memories of an old man who claims to have seen not one but three Ivory-billed woodpeckers in Northeastern Louisiana back in the late 1930s. The story also features footage of Ivory-billed woodpecker mounts in a museum.



It is pretty interesting to hear this gentleman recount his experience in the area formally known as the Singer Tract of Louisiana. Also,it is very cool to see the real bird, albeit in mounted form, in the video. Be sure to take a long hard look at these mounted Ivory-bill specimens. If you spend time in the woods and river bottoms of the south you want to be familiar with what these birds look like. After all, you just never know...

Once again, I am indebted to my friend Alton Higgins for finding and providing me with this link.

Daniel Rainsong Arrested

Anyone still giving Daniel Rainsong the benefit of the doubt regarding his alleged sighting of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker in the Sabine River bottoms of southeast Texas has got to be jumping ship now.

An article in today's Ames Tribune reports that Daniel Rainsong was arrested and charged with the theft of $10,000 from his dependent mother and with fraudulently using a blank personal check left with him by his father-in -law. Rainsong had obtained power of attorney over his mother and allegedly took only weeks to drain her bank account for his own personal expenses. The check from his father-in-law was meant to help cover his mother's medical and pharmacy bills. According to the article, Rainsong told his father-in-law the expenses would be less than $3,000. Rainsong faces two counts of first degree theft, a class C felony, and one count of dependent adult abuse, a class D felony. A preliminary hearing has been set in the case for Tuesday February 23 in Nevada. The entire article, written by Luke Jennett, can be accessed here.

It appears the whole sorry Rainsong episode is coming to a close. Rainsong's obsession with claiming a reward for the discovery of a live Ivory-billed Woodpecker now, unfortunately, makes more sense than ever. Any shred of credibility his story might have had is as extinct as the woodpecker he sought is alleged to be.

It is too bad. Sad, really...

Of Woodpeckers, Ghost Grizzlies, and Bigfoot

Now that some of the Ivory-billed mania has died down a bit, I thought I would add a few of my thoughts on this elusive bird, how it and other rare animals may have adapted to survive, and the similar difficulties faced by searchers of the IBW and other rare and/or undocumented animals.

The biologists who think the Ivory-billed Woodpecker still exists in the most remote forests and swamps of the deep south speculate that they are extremely wary. It is true that not a whole lot is known about IBW behavior but I think it is logical to assume it would behave much as other woodpeckers would in regards to interaction with humans. Many woodpeckers are quite shy around people and difficult to photograph. They will play a game of hide and seek with would be photographers and bird watchers, continually shifting positions to keep the trunk of a tree between themselves and their human pursuers. If the IBW was already a shy and reclusive species, like other woodpeckers, when their numbers were high then they would likely be incredibly wary now. As their habitat and numbers dwindled only the members of the species who were the most wary would have remained. It is likely, as a result of natural selection, that these individuals would have produced a generation of ultra-shy and reclusive birds. Even biologists involved in the well funded Cornell search for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker in Arkansas estimated there was an 80% chance of missing the bird altogether in their main research area. The Ivory-billed Woodpecker was given many nicknames over the years one of which was the "Ghost Bird." It seems this name was very well deserved.


A clue to the Ivory-billed Woodpecker's reclusive behavior may be found in a quote from a 1937 issue of The Auk, a prestigious ornithology journal. In this issue, an article entitled "Recent Observations on the Ivory-billed Woodpecker" by Allen & Kellogg contained the following passage:

"On the other hand, failure to find the birds in a given area is no proof that they are not there, for they are not noisy except when disturbed; their voice does not carry nearly as far as that of the Pileated Woodpecker and in the big trees which they normally frequent they are easily overlooked. We camped for five days within three hundred feet of one nest and, except when the birds were about to change places on the nest or were disturbed, seldom heard them. We had great difficulty in following them through the woods to learn their feeding habits even after becoming very familiar with their notes. The senior author at one time stood under a giant oak and caught in his hand chips of bark and wood than an Ivory-bill was scaling from a dead branch high in the tree without either one being able to see the other. We had hunted for three days for this particular pair of birds without ever hearing them, even though we were frequently within three hundred yards of the nest, which we finally found because we happened to be within hearing distance when the birds changed places on the nest."

"Ghost bird," indeed.

This process, by which, an incredibly wary remnant population of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers may have been produced has been observed in other species, including large mammals. Mainstream scientists have long thought the grizzly bear extirpated from the South San Juan Wilderness area of Colorado. Persistently, and irritatingly to some biologists, sightings of grizzlies in the area continue to trickle in on a fairly regular basis. It has been theorized that this remnant population of grizzlies has become incredibly cautious and wary. Many who believe this great bear to still be present in the region have gone on to speculate they have become almost totally nocturnal. This behavior would be an adaptation that would make contact with humans unlikely and ensure only the most wary of all grizzlies would reproduce. These bears have been dubbed the "Ghost Grizzlies" of the San Juans. Several good books have been written on this topic. Ghost Grizzlies: Does the great bear still haunt Colorado? by David Petersen and The Lost Grizzlies: A Search for Survivors in the Wilderness of Colorado by Rick Bass foremost among them. Could the reclusive behaviors of the IBW and the grizzlies of Colorado be applied to another legendary cryptid?



Based on what we know about the behaviors of stressed and endangered animal populations, it is not surprising the sasquatch has not yet been documented. Many will claim what is known about IBW and grizzlies cannot be applied to a species that may not even exist. I will concede that to entertain my theory one will have to entertain the possibility that the sasquatch does exist. Once this is accepted as a possibility, then it seems logical, to me at least, to think that the sasquatch may very well be behaving in a similar fashion to other threatened species. They would be very wary and cautious. They would likely make every effort not to be seen by humans. Much like the IBW, the areas the sasquatch is thought to inhabit in the south are very inhospitable to humans. Areas where sightings are reported the most often in Texas are low in elevation, marshy, swampy, and heavily wooded. The undergrowth is often so thick and thorny it makes traversing the terrain all but impossible. These areas are an evaders paradise. From personal experience I can say that it would be very easy, even for a large animal, to remain hidden from human eyes simply by ducking behind a tree and being still and quiet. The sasquatch, like the "ghost grizzlies" of the San Juans, may prefer to move about mainly at night. This is a startling departure from the behavior of other great apes, however, it may be an adaptation necessary to ensure the survival of the species. It is likely that the sasquatch started out as a very wary species. Over time diminishing habitat and human encroachment, along with natural selection, have likely produced a super stealthy and reclusive population of animals. Many who read this piece will see the quote from Allen & Kellogg's article above which says in part, "On the other hand, failure to find the birds in a given area is no proof that they are not there," and be reminded of the old sasquatch researcher's mantra that says, "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." I think it is an apt comparison.

Most people tend to think of animals as sort of wandering about the forest totally oblivious to whether or not people are present. This is simply not the case. It is accepted that there are animal species that intentionally hide from and avoid humans. If the animal in question is very rare to begin with, is very quiet, and intentionally hides from humans it is going to be extremely difficult to get a glimpse of. When you add the inhospitable habitats in which the species discussed here live to the equation the enormity of the task of discovery begins to crystallize. These factors will continue to be a stumbling block to those who seek to document a new species, like the sasquatch, or a remnant population of known animals like the Ivory-billed Woodpecker or the grizzly bear of Colorado.

My hat is off to those who continue to try.

*My thanks to my friend Alton Higgins for the heads up on the article from The Auk. Alton continues to be an invaluable source of information for this site.

More Ivory-Billed Woodpecker News

Nature has published an article on Ivory-billed woodpeckers on their website. The article can be accessed here. A couple of different IBW topics are touched upon in the piece.

One topic the article touches on is the 2005 claim by a team of researchers that they successfully filmed an Ivory-billed woodpecker in the swamps of Arkansas and the frustration biologists are now experiencing trying to locate the bird again as their funding dries up. It seems the hopes of finding and saving the species are fading. Many scientists thought there was a good chance that there was a remnant population of this legendary bird surviving in the swampy bottomlands of the deep South not so long ago. That seems to be changing. "We don't believe a recoverable population of Ivory-billed woodpeckers exists," said Ron Rohrbaugh, a conservation biologist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who headed the original Arkansas search team.

The Nature article also mentions the recent claims of Daniel Rainsong. Rainsong, of course, claimed recently to have photographed a living Ivory-billed woodpecker near the Sabine River in southeast Texas. According to the article, Rainsong has filed a formal complaint alleging ethical and financial misconduct by several prominent bird experts. Rainsong claims that these biologists would not come with him to the Sabine River in order to confirm his sighting thus denying him a chance to collect a $50,000 reward.

I have a friend close to this whole mess who says Rainsong's claims are totally false. It is true that the photos were judged to be inconclusive, However, this contact claims that Rainsong was taken very seriously and arrangements were being made with him to visit the sighting location before legal action was taken.

In any case, Ron Rohrbaugh says the Cornell University team will release an analysis of Rainsong's photo in about a week.

I'll be looking forward to that...

Source: Ivory-Billed Woodpecker Photos Inconclusive

I have received some interesting information from a source close to the Daniel Rainsong/Ivory-Billed Woodpecker situation. I'm afraid the information he has provided is far from surprising. Basically, as has been suggested at various other internet sites, Mr. Rainsong's recountings of events surrounding his alleged sighting have not proven to be consistent. Also, in the opinion of this source, the photos provided by Mr. Rainsong do not clearly depict an Ivory-billed woodpecker.

There is more I would like to share but I don't feel it would be prudent, for various reasons, to do so at this time. Rest assured, however, that I have passed along the most pertinent information of which I am aware regarding this claim. Hopefully, certain circumstances will change which will allow me to share some additional particulars regarding this whole episode.

So, this one is smelling worse by the day. I hope I'm wrong. I hope Mr. Rainsong can produce more convincing evidence. I won't be holding my breath, however.

Ivory-Billed Woodpecker Photos Likely A Hoax

The claims of Daniel Rainsong concerning his photographic evidence of a living Ivory-Billed woodpecker are beginning to look more and more dubious.

As pointed out by a reader in the comments section of my original post regarding the alleged Ivory-Billed sighting, the leading ornithological experts mentioned in Rainsong's press release have yet to see the photographs of the bird. Van Remsen, curator of birds at Louisiana State University's Museum of Natural Science and adjunct professor of biological sciences at LSU, says Rainsong has visited him but produced no photos. "He would not show me his photographic evidence. He said he had to develop them." Van Remsen added, " I'll believe it when I see it."

Another expert mentioned in Rainsong's press release says he has not seen the alleged photos. Jerry Jackson is the author of the 2007 Draft Recovery Plan for the Ivory-Billed woodpecker says he has never heard of Rainsong. "I look forward to seeing them but his approach has me wondering." he said. "This seems to be the standard 'IB obsession' approach, similar to the last report we got with photos, which were of a photoshopped Pileated."

It is looking more and more like Mr. Rainsong's claims are dubious at best. Based on Rainsong's conversation with Van Remsen, he had not yet developed his photos. How could Rainsong have known he had definitive photographic evidence of a living Ivory-Billed woodpecker if he had not yet developed his film? I also find it a bit unusual that a film camera was used by a, supposedly, serious birder and researcher at all. Also, if Rainsong truly felt he had captured the Ivory-Billed woodpecker on film why in the world would he wait over a month to develop the photos? I suppose it is possible but the story gets more difficult to swallow with every hour that passes.

There is more....

Rainsong, it seems, posted a strange ad on Craig's List looking for a "research assistant" to help him capture Ivory-Bill evidence. In the ad, Rainsong references a $10,000 reward for producing said evidence. No such reward exists, to my knowledge. You can see a partial reconstruction of the Craig's List ad here.

So, why perpetrate such an elaborate hoax? This was my main question to the reader who felt this was a likely hoax in the first place. Maybe there is a clue in the observation of Radd Icenoggle, author of Birds in Place: A Habitat-based Field Guide to Birds of the Northern Rockies. Icenoggle has noted that Rainsong's name appears on numerous gambling websites. Hmmm...

I really hope I'm wrong but I have pretty much given up on Rainsong's claims being true. There are just too many questions. I have not, however, given up on the idea that a remnant population of Ivory-Billed woodpeckers may yet survive in the bottom lands of this or other southern states. It will truly be a fantastic discovery when and if the Ivory-Billed woodpecker is re-discovered. It just seems that this is not that day.

Ivory-Billed Woodpecker Re-Discovered?

Some potentially fantastic news is being reported over at the Cryptomundo website by Loren Coleman.

A gentleman named Daniel Rainsong is claiming to have multiple, clear, and definitive photographs of a living breathing Ivory-Billed woodpecker. The legendary bird was photographed in the Sabine River Basin in December of 2009 and again at a later date. If true, the Holy Grail of ornithology has been located. Read the Cryptomundo post here.

The Ivory-Billed woodpecker once dominated old growth forests all over the south. It is a very large and striking woodpecker that has been dubbed the "Lord God Bird." The Ivory-Bill has been thought likely extinct since the mid 1900s. Periodically, reports of Ivory-Billed woodpeckers have trickled in from southern states. It seemed that most such reports turned out to be sightings of the similar looking, but smaller, Pileated woodpecker. The compelling sightings were never accompanied by photographic evidence. An expedition sponsored by Cornell University produced some interesting, but ultimately inconclusive, video of a woodpecker in flight that could have been an Ivory-Bill in 2004. The video was shot in the swamps of Arkansas but could not be duplicated.

According to Loren Coleman, Mr. Rainsong is a man who is very familiar with the differences between the Pileated and Ivory-Billed woodpeckers. Sources seem to be very confident that Rainsong would not mistake a Pileated woodpecker for an Ivory-Bill. Coleman goes on to report that the photographs have been sequestered to protect Mr. Rainsong's right of claim to this rediscovery. After confirmation of Rainsong's photographs, they will be released to the public in conjuction with biologists from Louisiana State University, Florida Gulf Coast University, Iowa State University, and Cornell University.

I really hope this turns out to be the real deal. It would be a true boon to the efforts to preserve potential Ivory-Billed habitats in southeast Texas and southwest Louisiana. This might allow the "Lord God Bird" to re-establish itself in its former haunts. The protection of these areas could only benefit other species as well.

Keep your fingers crossed...