This reader mentioned his skepticism about the origin of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. He reminded me of the lynx-hair episode wherein government scientists faked the presence of lynx on public lands while the lynx was being considered for Listing under the Endangered Species Act. In his recent (yesterday 28 June) telephone conversation with the US Fish and Wildlife Service Refuge Manager in Arkansas, he was told that the Manager has "at least one woodpecker there".

He very adroitly suggested to me that DNA testing of a molted feather might provide a check on the origin of "the" bird in Arkansas. There are Ivory-billed Woodpecker mounts and specimens (skins) of both American and Cuban birds in US bird collections in the Smithsonian and at several Universities. Now I know that it is probably out of the question that "the" bird be handled or trapped and that the likelihood of getting a feather unless a nest is discovered is highly unlikely. However, the possibility of such a check is definitely a possibility.

The Ivory-billed Woodpecker is one of four New World (North and South America) woodpeckers. These four woodpeckers are all closely related genetically, behaviorally, and physiologically. Up to forty years ago the Ivory-billed Woodpecker found in the southern US was considered one species and the Cuban Ivory-billed Woodpecker was considered another species. Today these two birds, that are practically identical, are considered subspecies meaning they were practically the same and could very likely interbreed. The other two closely related, but not identical in appearance, woodpeckers are the Emperor Woodpecker of NW Mexico and the Magellanic Woodpecker in Argentina and Chile.

The internet sites concerning Ivory-billed Woodpeckers (both subspecies) are overwhelmed with the "recent" discovery in Arkansas and ads for everything from T-shirts to government news releases and funding appeals by the environmental and non-profit land-buying organizations. However buried in there is some interesting but old information about the Cuban Ivory-billed Woodpecker.

Several news releases state that the Cuban birds have been thought extinct since 1986. A check of old papers and articles shows that in 1986 ornithologists observed eight (8) Cuban Ivory-bills when they searched the southern Cuban forests. The birds were again declared extinct in 1996 but 1998 reports indicated some birds were still present. Their status today (some Cubans eat the young, others nail them to their home to ward off evil spirits, tree cutting is haphazard, and as travel to and wandering about Cuba has for quite awhile been difficult to say the least for Americans) is uncertain. One expedition in the 1950's mentioned how the Cuban birds (unlike the American birds that were believed extinct by then) seemed to be able to adapt to logged areas and even pine forests as old hardwoods and old growth was used up. They observed that a similar adaptation, albeit similarly resulting in less dense populations seemed to be going on in NW Mexico with the Emperor Woodpecker.