Stalking the Ghost Bird: The Elusive Ivory-Billed Woodpecker in Louisiana [Hardcover]

Michael K. Steinberg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2008

When a kayaker thought he spotted an ivory-billed woodpecker in 2004, the birding community took notice. Two birders traveled to the bayou where the sighting occurred, well aware that the last confirmed sighting of an ivory-bill had taken place over sixty years ago. Both men caught a glimpse of the bird, and a team began to search the surrounding swamplands. Even after long hours of surveillance and multiple sightings, the scientists cautiously refused to disclose their rediscovery of the extinct bird until they captured it on film. At last, armed with a short video and sound clip, they published their findings in Science, triggering a frenzy of media coverage and sparking a controversy among birders and scientists who continue to disagree about whether the bird really still exists.

In Stalking the Ghost Bird, Michael K. Steinberg engages the lengthy debate over the ivory-bill's status by examining the reported sightings and extensive efforts to find the rare bird in Louisiana. Louisiana has long been at the center of the ivory-bill's story. John James Audubon wrote about the bird and its habitat during his stay in St. Francisville, and scientists James Tanner and George Lowery studied the ivory-bill in Louisiana in the 1930s and 1940s. More recently, bird experts have conducted targeted searches in Louisiana. Steinberg discusses these and other scientific expeditions, and he catalogs reported ivory-bill sightings since the 1950s, using a detailed timeline that includes both dates and specific locations.

Interviews with conservation officials, ornithologists, and native Louisianans illuminate the ongoing controversy and explore why the ivory-bill, more than any other bird, arouses so much attention. Steinberg meets elderly residents of the Atchafalaya Basin who saw the ivory-bill while hunting in the 1930s and even ate the bird-which they called the "forest turkey"-during hard times. He paddles into Two O'Clock Bayou with one wildlife professor and travels to a cypress-filled wildlife refuge with the director of Louisiana's Nature Conservancy. His interviews illustrate how expert opinions vary, as well as how much local non-experts know.

Steinberg also explores in detail the human impact on both the ivory-bill and its bottomland forest habitat, explains how forest-management practices in the South may pose problems for an ivory-bill recovery, and outlines where future searches for the bird should take place. In this absorbing study, Steinberg turns his lifelong interest in the majestic ivory-billed woodpecker into a tale that encapsulates both the mystery and intrigue surrounding the legendary bird and our fascination with it.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

This woodpecker, formerly found south of the Ohio River near its confluence with the Mississippi, is thought to be extinct. The last definite records were in 1943 at the Singer Tract in northeast Louisiana. In 2004 a team of Cornell University–led ornithologists reported seeing the bird in Arkansas. Steinberg insists that this book offers the accounts of both experts and Louisiana residents, documenting their encounters with and insights about the bird. The book also gives information on a 2005 search for the ivory-billed in Louisiana, which—although it did not produce any photographs—did result in “a couple of sightings by experienced birders,” Steinberg writes. The book provides background information, explores the human impacts on the bird and its bottomland forest habitat, contains interviews with conservation and ornithological experts, and outlines sites where the author believes future searches should take place. This comprehensive study will be welcomed by birders everywhere. --George Cohen

About the Author

Michael K. Steinberg, an assistant professor in the New College and Department of Geography at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, is the coeditor of Dangerous Harvest: Drug Plants and the Transformation of Indigenous Landscapes and Cultural and Physical Expositions: Geographic Studies in the Southern United States and Latin America. He has also published articles on various conservation-related topics in Conservation Biology, Geographical Review, and Economic Botany.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 173 pages
• Publisher: Louisiana State University Press (March 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807133051
• ISBN-13: 978-0807133057
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,444,665 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Some tantalizing ghost stories, September 14, 2008

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game lover (Miami, FL USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Stalking the Ghost Bird: The Elusive Ivory-Billed Woodpecker in Louisiana (Hardcover)

Like this reviewer, the author of this book is quite passionate about the search for evidence that this vanished species may still survive, and has put together a very well researched collection of stories about alleged sightings through the years, from the last authenticated sighting up until the present day. My main criticism is that he seems to accept almost every one of these sightings almost as fact, rather than something that, from a purely scientific viewpoint, must be taken with a large grain of salt in the absence of conclusive proof, such as a clear photo. Speaking of that, perhaps the most tantalizing piece of hard evidence shown in the book is the controversial picture taken by Fielding Lewis of an IBWO perched on a tree trunk. Its authenticity, however, continues to be hotly debated, and in any case, it dates back to the 70s. If the birds are really back, why has no one been able to take such a picture now?

To actually see this large, charismatic, colorful bird would be the experience of a lifetime for most naturalists, amateur or professional, living today, and for this reason some of us tend to get a little carried away by our feelings about it, perhaps sometimes making us half believe we caught a glimpse of the rare bird when in reality, it could have been something else. Absent a major miracle, we simply need to accept the consequences of our actions in failing to conserve this bird's unique habitat, and learn from our mistakes when it comes to saving other endangered species.

Nevertheless, some of the tales related here are quite compelling to any fan of this species who has dreamed of having his own encounter with it, and help to inspire some hope that at least some of the sightings may have been real. Readers are left to decide for themselves, and with something to dream about.