From the Stuttgart Daily Leader: After nearly three years of hiding, the Ivory-billed Woodpecker will now be actively sought.
Searchers plan to take to the skies in helicopters during a 10-day winter search, set to begin on Jan. 28, the day after Arkansas’ waterfowl season ends.
The Ivory-billed Woodpecker caused a stir in April of 2004 when a video was taken of the bird at the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge in Monroe County. The Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, considered extinct in the 1920s and estimated with a population of 20 in 1938, has ignited searches by bird enthusiasts throughout the region, all searching for the elusive black, white and red feathers.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will provide the helicopter set to take biologists through areas where sightings had been reported around the Cache and White rivers. Also involved in the coordination are the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, The Nature Conservancy, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and the U.S. Forest Service.
Read the Flyer cover story on the discovery.
