Tuesday, November 08, 2005

-- Ivory-bill Habitat Potential --

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In another new BirdForum note, "fangsheath" reported the following:
"Those with an interest in ivory-bills may find this paper of value. It describes forest changes in the Mississippi alluvial valley from the 1930's to the 1990's. Notice that in the early 1930's, when only about 1 million acres of uncut bottomland forest remained, much of it (though certainly not all) in NE La., there were about 13 million acres of regenerating second-growth. By this time many areas that had been clearcut were probably already 30+ years old. Many areas judged to be old-growth in the 1990's remained in private hands."

http://www.srs.fs.usda.gov/pubs/gtr...042-rudis01.pdf

--- Many of us have never bought the notion that Ivory-bill habitat simply disappeared completely in the 40's (and when necessary, birds can linger in forest 'patches' surprisingly well, if left undisturbed), nor that the birds couldn't easily adapt to second-growth forest. Ivory-bill habitat afterall was home to 100s of avian species (not just the Ivory-bill), almost all of whom are still with us today.
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Waccamaw River, North/South Carolina reports of IBWO:
Bird Forum thread quotes this very brief report from the Intercoastal Waterway at Waccamaw River in South Carolina.

More interesting, perhaps, is a report from 2004 by two fishermen on the Waccamaw River, quoted in the Charlotte Observer, July 3, 2005:

"...the man who called in the report said he and another angler fishing the Waccamaw in March 2004 saw a pair of birds flying over. One had a red crest; the other, a black crest. Rohrbaugh said the man was familiar with the pileated woodpecker and its markings."

Terraserver image of the Waccamaw River coming out of Lake Waccamaw. The area to the east of the river below the lake is the botanically famous Green Swamp. Although somewhat hard of access, there have certainly been plenty of biologists in that area over the years.