$50,000 worth of what?

This summer, I was fortunate enough to be sent to the National Conservation Training Center in West Virginia. It is a beautiful facility that belongs to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service where federal employees (and lucky Student Conservation Association interns like me) are sent for training. It is pretty much like summer camp for federally employed grown-ups. There are dorms that are named after prolific conservationists scattered in the woods, connected by little trails that meander through stands of huge Sycamores, paw-paws, and the other natural flora. And the cafeteria. OH, the cafeteria. It is like a North American nature-themed version of Hogwart’s Great Hall. At the head of the room, framed by the beautiful hand-hewn beams of the ceiling, is a woodpecker painted on the wall.

Ivory-billed Woodpeckers (animals.nationalgeographic.com)

I was surprised to learn that out of the 20 or so interns that were there with me, I was the only one who knew the significance of this woodpecker. At first glance, you might think it is a rendering of the Woody the Woodpecker bird, formally known as a Pileated Woodpecker. And you wouldn’t be the only one. The two birds are very similar. But it is not Woody the Woodpecker that gazes out over the people eating in this dining hall. It’s an Ivory-billed Woodpecker.

Ivory-bills are a sort of national symbol for human-induced extinction. Once upon a time, these behemoths of woodpeckers flourished in the untouched forests of the Southeastern United States. People hunted them for a variety of reasons, a primary reason being for their skins (they are quite beautiful birds, and really pretty big). But, as in most cases, what really drove the nail in the coffin was habitat destruction. Trees were cut down in large numbers, usually by corporations who bought these large tracts of land for this purpose. Numbers dwindled until the bird was officially listed as endangered in the 1960’s.

Around the 1970’s, reports of sightings from here and there began to catch ornithologists’ attention. Two photos surfaced from a man in Louisiana that appeared to show a male Ivory-bill on a dead tree. However, it was taken from a distance and did not show enough detail to be clearly distinguishable from the similar Pileated Woodpecker. Some people even accused the man of attaching a dead stuffed Ivory-billed to the tree and then taking the photos. The Ivory-bill issue remained simmering for several decades, until a video surfaced in 2004.

The video was taken by people who were kayaking in a marshy swamp area in Arkansas. In the grainy background, a woodpecker flutters off of a tree. Scientists and bird enthusiasts alike (after likely peeing themselves out of excitement) fueled the idea that this was indeed a video of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. This was a big deal. It made headlines and news programs around the country. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology (the premier bird authority in the country) offered $10,000 to anyone who could lead one of their biologists to the bird. After 2 years passed and no one was successful, they upped it to $50,000. A $50,000 reward for finding a bird…

Here, I can’t help but take a step back and think. The bird sighting itself is not worth this money, but rather the money must be representative of some other value that the Ivory-bill’s existence would hold. Perhaps it’s $50,000 worth of absolved guilt we carry for recklessly and needlessly wiping such a beautiful animal out of existence. Maybe it’s $50,000 worth of satisfaction that we as guardians of the natural world have managed to do something right in the midst of environmental enlightenment. Maybe it’s $50,000 worth of hope. Or maybe it’s simply $50,000 worth of the good ole “never give up” spirit.

I think it is probably a mixture of all of them. The video from 2004 was further analyzed and everyone eventually agreed that it was actually footage of a Pileated. The underside coloration of the wings proved to be the determining factor.

Ivory-bill on the left, Pileated on the right (Cornell Lab of Ornithology)

Reported sightings have continued to surface here and there, but concrete evidence has never been provided of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker’s survival. Who knows, maybe there are a few elusive birds out there, the living incarnations of the twilight of their own species. We will never be able to know for sure. At any rate, it is sad. Sad in the sort of way that can’t be fixed or eased. We can’t undo this mistake, or even apologize for it. 

If this saga catches your heart or imagination, explore further. I recommend the documentary “Ghost Bird,” available on Netflix or sometimes plays on the documentary channel if you have Direct TV. “Ivorybill Hunters: The Search for Proof in a Flooded Wilderness” by Geoff Hill is also worth checking out.