Daniel Cusick, Greenwire Southeast reporter
The ivory-billed woodpecker has re-emerged, scientists say, this time in a northwest Florida swamp where the bird once flourished before taking a sharp turn toward extinction.
A small research team led by ornithologists from Auburn University in Alabama and the University of Windsor in Ontario say they have accumulated some of the strongest evidence to date that the ivory-billed remains in Florida, including extensive audio recordings of the bird's signature "kent calls" and "double knocks" on trees.
Outside experts agree and say the Choctawhatchee River Basin represents an important new front in the campaign to prove the continued existence of the ivory-billed, whose last undisputed sighting was in 1944 in a cutover Louisiana forest known as the Singer tract.
"I think we've got the best evidence suggesting that an ivory-billed may exist since the Singer tract," said Geoffrey Hill, a seasoned ornithologist and professor of biological sciences at Auburn who led the research team.
Initial reaction from environmental groups, many of which learned of the research only today, was cautiously optimistic.
"It would be wonderful to confirm that a viable population of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers exists, and we hope the search by the Auburn research team will lead to that," said Greg Butcher, director of bird conservation for the National Audubon Society, in a statement.
Among the evidence published today in the online journal Avian Conservation and Ecology and on an Auburn University Web site, are more than 200 clear recordings of sounds strongly associated with ivory-billeds, often from within a few hundred feet.
As yet, the team has not produced irrefutable evidence in the form of a clear picture or videotape of an ivory-billed woodpecker. But Hill said he remains optimistic such evidence will be produced in upcoming searches. He said the team documented 14 ivory-billed sightings over a five-month foray into the swamp, including several conclusive identifications.
The team's recordings include 210 kent calls and 99 double knocks. The team also has extensive photographic evidence of tree cavities that are appropriately sized for ivory-billeds as well as numerous instances of bark-scaling, where tree bark is stripped away by woodpeckers to expose insects for feeding.
In addition to the audio and photo evidence, Hill said he and his colleagues claim 14 sightings of what they say could be as many as four ivory-billed woodpeckers along the river corridor south of Interstate 10. The two-square-mile research area is in one of Florida's most remote corners -- tucked between Eglin Air Force Base to the west and large swaths of industrial forest to the east.
'A very strong case'
For five months, from late December 2005 to April of this year, the Auburn and Windsor researchers operated from a base camp deep within the Choctawhatchee swamp, collecting sound recordings and trying to capture one or more birds on film. The research tract is part of a 50,000-acre parcel owned by the Northwest Florida Water Management District, which manages the area for water quality.
More than 11,000 hours of audio recordings were analyzed by University of Windsor ornithologist Dan Mennill, who has done extensive research on another large woodpecker species, the pale-billed, in Costa Rica.
In an interview this week, Mennill said his student staff pored through the audio recordings containing many hundreds of suspected kent calls and double knocks, then transferred the recordings into a computer program to isolate the clearest sounds.
"I have a lot of confidence in our recordings," said Mennill, whose research specialization is bird vocalization. He said that while the audio evidence remains very strong, it is the overlay of other evidence -- including 20 tree cavities, bark-scaling and multiple sightings of birds -- that makes the findings so compelling.
"Any one of those lines of evidence you could dismiss as a coincidence or mistake," Mennill said. "But all of these lines of corroborative evidence together are a very strong case."
The group does have several videos of birds, but Hill said they are inconclusive and will not be entered as evidence of their findings. "Bad images will only get you in trouble," he said, adding that grainy video "is like a fleeting glimpse, and we have plenty of those already."
Instead, the group decided to rely on its audio evidence, which is extensive and will be made available online for other experts and amateur birders to evaluate and debate.
The research team expects to return to the Choctawhatchee late this year with a more robust budget and more coordination with other experts, including the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in New York, whose scientists published a paper in 2005 confirming the rediscovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker in northeast Arkansas.
Fueling controversy
The Cornell discovery, in a vast tract of Mississippi River bottomland forest known as the Big Woods, set off a flurry of public attention and garnered new public and private funding for ivory-billed search-and-recovery efforts. But since the initial sighting, no additional birds have turned up in Arkansas, leading some to doubt the Cornell findings.
Mindful of the heightened skepticism, Hill said his team remained quiet about their findings until late last spring, when they submitted the research to several high-profile journals, including Nature and Science, where the Cornell findings were published in April 2005. Rebuffed, the scientists took the paper to the new and little-known Canadian journal Avian Conservation and Ecology, which agreed to publish it.
In an editorial published alongside the research, the journal's editors acknowledged the research will fuel ongoing controversy over whether the ivory-billed woodpecker remains a viable species.
"Indeed, it is legitimate to ask whether the scientific bar has been adjusted for publicity, and whether it is productive -- from a scientific perspective -- to publish further papers claiming to have rediscovered ivory-billed Woodpeckers without direct, physical evidence, such as clear photographs, videos, or feathers," the editors wrote.
Ultimately, the editors concluded that, "to deny publication of a controversial paper simply because it did not present a definitive conclusion to an ongoing debate with political consequences would only mean that we abrogated our responsibility. The subject matter is first and foremost consistent with our vision for ACE-ECO."
Other independent ivory-billed experts, such as Jerry Jackson of Florida Gulf Coast University, said the Auburn team has amassed a highly compelling body of evidence that deserves more attention.
"Their evidence, including sound recordings, fleeting observations, feeding sign and cavity excavations, is as strong, and in some cases ways stronger, than that presented for Arkansas," Jackson said in a recent e-mail.
"What is needed now is definitive proof such as quality photos or a bird or birds that return with some regulatory to a roost or nest cavity," Jackson continued. "Expanded searches of this river system and other coastal rivers of north Florida are an essential beginning."
Call for habitat protection
Ken Rosenberg, the Cornell lab's conservation director, characterized the Auburn team's findings as "definitely encouraging and definitely noteworthy." He said the lab will provide logistical support, sophisticated camera equipment and, if asked, experienced bird identifiers for the next search season to begin late this year.
Regarding the Florida panhandle region, Rosenberg said, "We know from historic records that that's where the ivory-billed was most abundant, in those river corridors running down to the Gulf of Mexico." He added, however, the Choctawhatchee had not been extensively searched prior to the Auburn team's investigation.
"It's a slightly smaller river, but the stretch where their study area is located is great habitat," he said. "We congratulate them for taking that river on a whim and searching it."
Rosenberg said he plans to visit the Choctawhatchee basin himself within the year. "I can't wait to get down there," he said.
A spokesman for the Fish and Wildlife Service's Southeast regional office said yesterday the agency "is interested in the research, and we're going to offer some kind of financial support" to upcoming search efforts.
Other agencies expected to participate in future studies and searches are the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the Northwest Florida Water Management District.
Butcher of the Audubon Society said that the Auburn announcement "is a reminder of why it is so essential that we protect bottomland forests, wetlands and coastal habitats across the Southeast, adding that "these new sightings should reinvigorate efforts to find the bird in other portions of its historic range."