National Aviary researcher says ivory-billed woodpecker — elusive and beautiful — not extinct yet

A National Aviary researcher was wading in the waters of hardwood bottomlands in Louisiana. Then, whoosh: A large black bird with bright distinctive white markings — which he believed to be the ivory-billed woodpecker — flushed from a snag.

Steven Latta watched the Holy Grail of birds for six to eight seconds. That’s more than most mortals glean.

His sighting of the ivory-billed woodpecker in February 2019 was not just a professional and personal highpoint for Latta, 62, a Richland resident who is director of conservation and field research at the National Aviary on Pittsburgh’s North Side.

It was one of many sightings, some captured on trail cams and drones, from a multiyear expedition in the flooded hardwood forests of Louisiana. Launched as Project Coyote, it is now called Project Principalis, dedicated to proving the existence of an iconic bird the federal government proposes to write off as extinct. The National Aviary officially joined the project in 2019.

A research paper released last month — “Multiple Lines of Evidence Indicate the Survival of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker in Louisiana” — was co-authored by Latta, Aviary research associate Mark Michaels and eight other Project Principalis researchers. Awaiting the peer-review process, it was made public to inform scholars and government agencies. National and international media, from The New York Times to The Guardian, have reported on their findings, along with the journal Science.

The release is timely: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed changing its status to extinct last year. But the agency is still reviewing information after a January hearing and has not made a final decision.

The ivory-billed woodpecker has been the subject of unrelenting searches for many decades. The bird is “big, showy and beautiful,” Latta said.

That beauty, however, is what caused trouble for the bird. Native Americans and international travelers “were fond of possessing the upper part of the head and the bill of the male,” said artist James John Audubon in his account of the species, published in the early 1800s.

The bird continued to be taken for more than a century after that by collectors, including museums. Then, it lost most of its habitat to forest clear-cutting.

“The ivory-billed woodpecker is an iconic species that has captured the imagination of researchers and the public alike,” Latta said. “The fact that it favors the most remote corners of our country, depending on the oldest trees in the most forbidden flooded, bottomland forests full of venomous snakes and alligators adds to its mystique and the excitement over its very existence.”

But more importantly today, the woodpecker serves as an example of the importance of conservation, which is part of the National Aviary’s work. And it’s not just about protecting the ivory-billed, Latta said, but the hundreds of other species that share the bottomland forests.

Deep in the forest

The ivory-billed woodpecker is about the size of a crow with a black body and prominent white marks, including a white line on its neck and large, a bright white “saddle” on its back, seen when it forages on a tree trunk or limb. The males sport a pointed red crest. It’s the largest woodpecker in the country.

The bird would seem to be hard to miss. The problem is where this woodpecker king lives.

The bird’s historical range was in bottomland hardwood forests in the southeastern United States, much of which were cleared from the 1880s to 1940s.

Access is difficult in the woodpeckers’ historical range, said Latta.

“Nobody goes there except for a few hunters,” he said. The researchers have one spot they have been exploring that requires walking for several miles in a flooded hardwood forest with alligators, snakes, mosquitoes and wild pigs.

Latta quickly points out that his or anybody’s single sighting isn’t going to stop the current U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proceedings to declare the woodpecker extinct.

The goal of Project Principalis is “determining definitively whether the ivory-billed woodpecker survives or not after decades of debate,” Latta said, “and to help to conserve the critical bottomlands they and other species depend on.”

The heft of numerous sightings captured on video and cameras, and other Project Principalis research over the last 3½ years, might prove the woodpecker still lives in the remote Louisiana bottomlands, Latta said.

“We have cumulative evidence from multiple years,” Latta said. Previous efforts have resulted in single photos and short videos.

“We’re confident of our data and our interpretation,” he said. “We’ve seen a lot of support among ornithologists and birdwatchers for our conclusion that the birds survive, but we expect some skepticism. The debate is healthy.”

His project’s findings will no doubt figure into the current raging debate on whether the ivory-billed still exists.

Sightings, photos and videos of the what researchers say document the bird have been taken at a distance, producing oftentimes grainy images, and for some, inconclusive photos.

Researchers have presented information, images and recordings they believe verify that the bird still lives in remote habitats.

The feds not budging

Many expeditions have penetrated the wild mature hardwood bottomlands and swampy lowlands in the southeastern part of the country in search of the bird. The agency cites the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and partners covering 523,000 acres in eight states between 2006 and 2010.

But the Fish and Wildlife Service insists that definitive evidence of the birds’ survival is lacking.

The agency has not accepted new sightings of the elusive bird since 1944 in Louisiana.

Although since that time, there have been about 200 sightings of the bird from credible ornithologists as well as hunters and land managers who know the area and its wildlife well, Latta said.

Many researchers who spoke at a Jan. 26 hearing on essentially declaring the bird extinct, disagreed. In their public comments, they asked the agency to have more patience and said more time is needed.

“There’s always going to be a segment of the birdwatching community waiting for the types of photos that appear in National Geographic with parents at a nest tree with nestlings,” Latta said. “They are waiting for that level of evidence, and that is OK.”

Latta said his team commented during the hearing and has made their recent paper available to the service and the public in “pre-print” form.

In the meantime, work continues with Project Principalis. Trail cams and other devices are operating in Louisiana bottomlands. The aviary is working with the researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and Duquesne University to find DNA evidence of the ivory-billed woodpeckers.

There’s more to come, Latta said.