The ivory-billed woodpecker has not, as scientists feared, flown forever across extinction’s threshold. Scientists confirm there have been recent, credible sightings of the big, strikingly colored bird in a remnant of eastern Arkansas’ bottomland forests. But the birds’ future survival depends on how we respond to the discovery that they’re still around.
The woodpeckers’ near-demise likely was caused by widespread habitat loss. Excessive logging harmed many species by devastating the Southeast’s great native forests, which once covered many thousands of square miles. The ivory-billed woodpecker was especially vulnerable because it needs large tracts of undisturbed land and has a picky diet. It lives mostly on large beetle larvae found in big, dead or dying trees – and the largest concentrations of such bugs appear after wildfires sweep through a pine forest. So the woodpeckers suffered the dual problem of outright habitat loss and suppression of fires within what little was left of the great low-lying woodlands, ornithology experts say.
The bird was found in a half-million-acre preserve set aside to protect other species, such as warblers and waterfowl. This fact deserves emphasis. The preservation of an intact ecosystem for a few types of wildlife led to the salvation of other species that use different parts of the same landscape.
This particular forest, snuggled along swamps that feed the Mississippi River, has been preserved by a coalition focused on solving problems, not on scoring political points. The Big Woods partnership includes The Nature Conservancy, government agencies, hunters, farmers and timber companies.
Good news about the woodpeckers also rekindled debate over whether the Endangered Species Act should be rewritten. Over the last three decades, the act has helped many species recover, including the bald eagle and grizzly bear, and prodded government agencies and private industries to help protect ecosystems. Still, if the law were written today, it would place more emphasis on preserving ecosystems, rather than on using rare species as the tool to save habitat.
One lesson of the ivory-billed woodpeckers’ survival is that more should be done to preserve intact ecosystems and natural landscapes, over areas large enough to be useful to many species.
