Ivory-Billed Woodpecker Declares Itself Unextinct
True believers have long refused to accept that the ivory-billed woodpecker, once common in the United States, is extinct. This year that faith was rewarded. After more than 60 years out of the public eye, the majestic bird was definitively sighted once again.
These birds are hard to miss: Big, vocal, and red headed, they are the largest of American woodpeckers. Denizens of bottomlands and old forests from the Carolinas to east Texas, the birds dwindled in number as their habitat was logged from the late 1800s through the 1930s. The last official appearance, in the 1940s, was followed by several decades of anecdotal sightings. Among those who refused to believe the end had come was Tim Gallagher of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and editor of Living Bird magazine.
Gallagher's luck turned one day when he came across a Web site with an entry ...
