Ivory-billed Woodpecker: Dead again.

[StClone]

The purported resurrection of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, given life with a "positive" video ID in 2004, has become a ghost story again. Along with 22 other species, it is now called extinct. The Ivory-billed, last indisputably seen (filmed) over 70 years ago in Louisiana, may still occur as a subspecies in Cuba (last accepted sighting there in the ''80s) would indicate extirpation (loss of a species from a specific landform/area) rather than total extinct (lost from the world).


https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/29/us-bird-species-ivory-billed-woodpecker-extinct

[Ziggysmom]

1. So many species were driven to extinction, partly due to fashion. People just HAD to have

their feathers or fur on their stupid hats and clothes. RIDICULOUS!

[StClone]

2. Fashion and "progress"

If tearing down your home is progress, we have succeeded wildly!

[SCantiGOP]

3. "He was there when we needed him"

Quick story: We had a great Dem State Senator named Alex Sanders.
In the early 1970's, they were getting ready to approve logging permits in an ancient old growth swamp area in SC. Sanders got a recording of the Ivory billed woodpecker call from the head of the Audubon Society, headed out into the swamp and played the recording. He then reported that he heard another woodpecker answer the call.
That was enough to stop the permitting process, and eventually thousands of acres were declared as the Congaree Swamp National Monument - SC's first national park.
When the Senate session where Sanders disclosed his 'discovery' of the bird ended, several friends of Sanders approached him, and one said, "Alex, we all know that bird hasn't been in SC for decades, and may be extinct." His reply was, "Well, he was there when we needed him."
Sanders, who was Lindsey Graham's opponent when Graham won his first US Senate race, went on to become President of the College of Charleston and first Chief Justice of the SC Appeals Court.

[StClone]

4. Congaree National Park was also home of the likely extinct Bachman's Warbler

There may have been a connection of the loss of the ancient old-growth wetland trees which was crucial to the survival of the Ivory-billed, and, may have also had significance for both now extinct Bachman's Warbler, and Carolina Parakeet.

Congaree National Park https://www.nps.gov/rlc/ogbfrec/bachmans.htm

Thanks for the note! I recall the Congaree NP and I'On Swamp (SC) from my childhood reading the history of these lost birds.