May 19, 2006
2nd Field Season Fails to Find the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker 

By JAMES GORMAN--NY TIMES

An intensive search of the Big Woods area of Arkansas last fall and winter 
failed to produce confirmation that the much-sought ivory-billed woodpecker 
still exists. 

Ron Rohrbaugh of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, which has led the search, 
said in a telephone news conference yesterday that there seemed to be no 
resident ivory bills in the Bayou de View area of the Cache River National 
Wildlife Refuge, where the initial sighting was made. The Fish and Wildlife 
Service is lifting restrictions on visitors to that area.

"Certainly we're somewhat disappointed," Mr. Rohrbaugh said, but he 
expressed hope that an ivory bill might yet be found in the White River 
National Wildlife Refuge in Arkansas, where searches have been conducted. 

"Just because we've put two field seasons in doesn't necessarily mean that 
the bird is not there or that we should have found it by now," he said. 

The near mythical ivory bill, the largest woodpecker in the United States, 
was a ghost for the second half of the last century, thought to be extinct 
but occasionally glimpsed, although sightings were never confirmed. But it 
was reported found again in May 2005 by the Cornell Lab and other 
organizations, because of several sightings and a blurry videotape.

The finding has been challenged by some ornithologists and birders, notably 
David Sibley, author of The Sibley Guide to Birds, and the results of this 
season were much anticipated by birders and conservationists.

Last August, at a meeting of the American Ornithologists' Union, Russell A. 
Charif of the Cornell Lab, an audio expert, said of this field 
season, "It's make or break, I think."

The 2005-2006 search involved 22 biologists and more than 100 volunteers, 
as well as remote audio and video recording devices, and cost about $1 
million. Martjan Lammertink, on the Cornell search team, said there were 
four possible sightings, one by a volunteer and three by members of the 
public. None were definitive.

But the searchers are not conceding defeat. The Cornell Lab stands by its 
original statement, and searches are planned for other states, as well.

Richard Prum, an ornithologist at Yale University who has been a prime 
critic of the original evidence of a sighting, said: "It's unfortunate that 
they haven't really found the bird. Right now, the jury's out on whether 
the ivory bill is alive and well."
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May 18, 2006

Birders Find No New Evidence of Woodpecker 

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 10:08 p.m. ET

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) -- With news Thursday that search teams had found no 
new confirmation of the ivory-billed woodpecker's existence in the swamps 
of eastern Arkansas, wildlife managers said there was no longer a reason to 
limit public access to the region.

''Based on the information coming from the search and research that we have 
done, I feel there is no need any longer to limit public use within this 
area,'' said Dennis Widner, manager of the Cache River Wildlife Management 
Area where the bird was first spotted in 2004.

While the searchers are disappointed with the lack of evidence of the 
bird's presence, it ''doesn't mean the bird's not there,'' said Ron 
Rohrbaugh of the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, N.Y.

''Certainly we're somewhat disappointed,'' Rohrbaugh said. ''We've had 
enough of these tantalizing sounds and we still have a lot of hope that 
there might be a pair, especially in the White River area.''

Cornell researchers supported the decision to reopen the wildlife refuge to 
general use. If new evidence is discovered, however, state and federal 
agencies can reimpose restrictions on access, Widner said.

But reopening the area to the public won't dissuade birders from trying to 
catch a glimpse of the elusive bird, Widner said. Instead, he said, birders 
will continue searching with the hope they will be able to provide proof 
that the bird lives.

''For several years there will be a scurry of activity as they try to get 
that photo,'' Widner said.

And birders won't have to worry about more hunters and fishermen crowding 
the refuge either, said Keith Stephens, a spokesman for the Arkansas Game 
and Fish Commission. The area is too dense for most hunters and too shallow 
for fishermen, he said.

More than 100 volunteers and full-time researchers went through the area 
over the winter but failed to find additional strong evidence of the bird's 
existence in their primary search area.

The National Audubon Society said they would continue to support search 
efforts for at least one more year. ''The big woods was recognized as an 
important bird area many years before the rediscovery of the ivory-billed 
woodpecker,'' said Dan Scheiman of Audubon Arkansas.

Jon Andrew, the recovery team leader with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife 
Service, said the search will continue next year across the Southeast. Paid 
and unpaid searchers would look for evidence of the bird in Alabama, 
Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina and Texas as well as Arkansas, Andrew 
said.

Researchers believe they have captured audio recordings of the rare bird -- 
accompanying a brief, grainy videotape of what is believed to be an ivory-
billed woodpecker.

One volunteer searcher and three members of the public have reported seeing 
the bird, but none of the full-time researchers has sighted it, said 
Martjan Lammertink, also of Cornell. Lammertink said in all four cases, the 
birds sighted had large amounts of white feathers on the lower halves of 
the wings -- consistent with an ivory-bill.

However, Lammertink said members of the team ''have heard knocks, calls. We 
don't have an existing recording of an ivory-billed so we have to make 
extrapolations from other recordings,'' he said. ''It's a complicated 
process.''

Until Sparling's reported sighting Feb. 11, 2004, the last known sighting 
of the bird was in north Louisiana in 1944.

For residents of Brinkley, the town that became a hub for birders because 
it sits near the Cache and White rivers halfway between Little Rock and 
Memphis, Tenn., how the news will effect their home remains to be seen.

Sandra Kemmer, the executive director of the Brinkley Chamber of Commerce, 
said residents haven't been affected by skeptics before, and the lack of 
evidence hasn't shaken the town's confidence that the bird lives in their 
woods.

''We're still excited,'' Kemmer said. ''There are people that are still 
coming because word got out because of how awesome it is down here. People 
are coming to see what we have already -- the other species of woodpeckers 
and the thousand-year-old cypress trees.''