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Southeast Region U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
Ivory-billed Woodpecker -- Recovery starts here ...

Cache River NWR scene

Fast Facts --

In the early 1900s, conservationists warned of the impending extinction of the Ivory-billed woodpecker.

From 1937 to 1939, James Tanner, a young doctoral student at Cornell University, researched the Ivory-billed woodpeckers of the Singer Tract.

Prior to the 2004 discovery of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker at Cache River National Wildlife Refuge in Arkansas, this was the last authenticated sighting of the bird in the United States.


Much of the information comes from “Hope Is The Thing With Feathers: A Personal Chronicle of Vanished Birds” by Christopher Cokinos.
Audio --

Hear the only known recording of the Ivory-billed Woodpeckers captured in 1935 on the Singer Tract, Louisiana (today part of the Tensas National Wildlife Refuge). Recorded by Arthur A. Allen and Peter Paul Kellogg ©2004 Cornell Lab of Ornithology


Hear the "double knock" from the 2004-2005 search recorded in the Big Woods -
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/ivory/field/listening/doubleknock_list

Hear the "kent" call from the 2004-2005 search recorded in the Big Woods -
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/ivory/field/listening/kentone


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