I’ve held an Ivory-billed Woodpecker in my hand. I never expected that to happen, yet here I was holding a now extinct bird. Nor would I have guessed that an art student of mine would pull open a drawer holding an Ivory-billed Woodpecker, a Passenger Pigeon, and a Carolina Parakeet. A few steps away there was a whooping crane, too big for a drawer. Yet another bird close to my heart. I had done many paintings of the whooping crane for my show Big Wings-Big Love at the Santa Fe Audubon Center.

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This story is about another big winged bird, the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. While this is a sad story it’s one worth knowing. It’s a murder mystery with all the twists and turns of an Agatha Cristie novel.

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We could start with the oft told story of Alexander Wilson who in February of 1809 having already killed two Ivory-bills wounded another then kept it in his room until it starved to death three days later, meanwhile attacking both Wilson and the mahogany table it was tied to. We could jump forward to Mrs. O’Leary’s cow, for surely that is part of the story. However, I would like to start with the Native Americans use of Ivory-bills beaks for clothing embellishments. It is often said Native Indians only used what they needed nothing more so no harm would result. Is that true? How could they know how few Ivory-Bills were around and how their habitat was so specialized? It wasn’t until the 1930’s that Arthur Allen realized to save the bird we needed to know about their diet and habitat. He was likely studying what was to be the last remaining group of Ivory-bills.

 

Others were collecting Ivory-bills also including Audubon himself who shot three one day. Other collectors in the 19th century hired local Florida “crackers” to collect the birds. Killed of course. Five dollars a bird or more at a time when five dollars a day was a handsome wage. Collectors told other collectors to ‘Hurry up and get yours while there are still some left."

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When Mrs. O’Leary’s cow kicked over a lantern and started the great Chicago fire of early October 1871, there was already a shortage of lumber in the great lakes region. Great virgin forests of the Lower Mississippi Delta and other areas of the South had been left uncut. That was where the new lumber was to be found. That is also where the Ivory-billed Woodpecker made his home. Much land was logged and much land lay in waste and ruin in the path of the loggers. There was no thought for the future even many years later when the fate of the last track of Ivory-billed habit was left to the owners of the land, Chicago Mill, who told the activists they themselves had no ethics, “We are just greedy businessmen.” More on that later.

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During this same time period American women were following the fashions of Europe of wearing feathers in their hats. The slaughter of plumed birds, especially in the South was relentless. While Florida had passed bird protection laws as early as 1901, the carnage continued. What did make a difference was when in 1910 New York state passed a bill outlawing the ownership and sale of protected bird feathers. Since New York City is where most of the hats were made, it effectively halted the trade in feathers.

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For a while things were looking up for the Ivory-billed. In 1924 Dr. Arthur Allen of Cornell University went to Florida and became the first and nearly last man to photograph what were called Kents to the locals, our friend the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. In point of fact the first two birds ever to be photographed were later shot by Dr. Allen’s guide Morgan Tindall with the permission of the local sheriff.

 

In 1935 Dr. Allen was back in the South this time to the place that would be the last home of the Ivory-billed. Also with him was grad student Jim Tanner and meeting them was warden J.J. Kuhn the last of the legendary names associated with the Ivory-billed.  The place they were at was a few miles west of Tallulah, Louisiana along the Tensas River known as the Singer Tract. These men came with more film and sound recording equipment and were about the record the bird calls.

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Here the story begins to pick up pace. In 1939 Chicago Mill and Lumber Co. had built railroad tracks out to the Singer Tract. They logged the land seven days a week from dusk to dawn “getting out the cut.” Just a year later Audubon’s John Baker persuaded Louisiana’s politicians to introduce a bill to congress to create Tensas Swamp National Park. Money was raised, $200,000 for 4,000 acres of forest. Amazingly the Roosevelt administration agreed in writing that the land was not essential to the war effort. Everything was lining up in the Ivory-bills favor.

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Luckily for the Chicago Mill and Lumber Co. even though many whites had left for the war, many blacks remained to do the hot and hard work of logging and milling lumber. That was all about to change. The NAACP demanded that blacks get good, high paying defense jobs and were organizing a huge march on Washington to achieve that goal. The march turned out to be unnecessary when on June 25, 1941 Roosevelt bowed to pressure and signed Executive Order 8802 to ensure blacks “There shall be no discrimination in the employment of workers in the defense industries or government because of race, creed, color or national origin.” The blacks couldn’t get out of Louisiana fast enough.

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On December 8, 1943 it looked like the big break that the Ivory-billed needed had finally arrived.  No more workers and a National Park ready for the making. Again, Audubon’s John Baker met with the Chicago Mill and Lumber Co. But the deal had changed. Neither Singer or Chicago Mill cared a whit about a National Park. Quote the chairman of Chicago Mill, “We are just money grubbers. We are not concerned with ethical considerations.”

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Hope springs eternal. With few workers left perhaps the habitat could be saved. Yet this was not to be. From the most unlikely place came the final assault, German prisoners of war, 505 in all. Chicago Mill once again had the labor it needed. The sawmill ran 24 hours a day selling all the wood it could cut. There would be no National Park.

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I went back to Tallulah in early November 2017, A day in the 80’s. I drove west to what is now the Tensas River National Wildlife Refuge. Wildlife yes, but no Ivory-Billed Woodpeckers. The last to be seen was a single female in April of 1944. Where the Singer Tract once stood is a second growth forest with a visitor center but few visitors. Maybe that’s where hunters get their permits. I don’t know. There is a dead stuffed Ivory-billed Woodpecker in a glass case. It’s enough to make you cry.

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People still believe there are Ivory-bills out there. Who can blame them for wanting it to be? Tim Gallagher of Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology wrote a book called THE GRAIL BIRD telling of his successful hunt for a sighting of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker in 2004. You can even try your luck in Arkansas where Ivory-billed tours are guided on the Cashe River near Conway. Just don’t expect to see any Ivory-bills.

 

One of the best sources of written material is the excellent book by Phillip Hoose THE RACE TO SAVE THE LORD GOD BIRD. The other is a spiral bound booklet called SINGER written by John Martin of the Hermione Museum of Tallulah Louisiana. After an intensive interview with John Martin I am convinced that there are no Ivory-billed Woodpeckers in Tensas NWR. Phillip Hoose’s book confirms the same for Ivory-bills elsewhere. Between loud cries, late rising, distinctive bark stripping, flight path and plumage, it’s hard to mistake the Ivory-billed for anything else. Although plenty of people have mistaken it for its cousin the Pileated Woodpecker. Believe me when I say I’m not out to malign anyone who thinks they saw an Ivory-billed. Any friend of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker is a friend of mine. While I wish it were otherwise, there are simply no living Ivory-billed Woodpeckers left.

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Kevin Ernesto VanWicklin - January, 2018

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