-- IBWO Foundation Inaugural --

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Mary Scott's report on the inaugural of Bobby Harrison's Ivory-billed Woodpecker Foundation here.

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-- Texas Doings --

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John Arvin, head of the Texas IBWO search, posted this generally discouraging news on the Texas listserv today:

"Temple-Inland, the largest landowner of forested land in East Texas, has
announced a sell-off of their land holdings in the region. Why is this bad
news? Because continuous forests, both bottomland (especially) and upland pine
will be fragmented into thousands of little parcels as people obtain land for
their weekend homes. There are few conservation dollars available to pick up
some of the more important tracts. Birds and other organisms associated with
large tracts of intact forest will be especially affected. So, we can forget
about the (admittedly slight) chance that Ivory-billed Woodpecker might once
again inhabit extensive tracts of bottomland forest. Existing preserved tracts
are insufficient to support a viable population of that species and others like
it (e.g. Louisiana Black Bear). The almost extinct Longleaf Pine ecosystem of
the uplands is also in peril, along with its specialty species (Red-cockaded
Woodpecker, Bachman's Sparrow, Brown-headed Nuthatch). Habitat fragmentation is
almost as damaging as outright habitat loss for many species. Sorry to be the
bearer of bad tidings."

...speaking of Texas, another article from a few days back on the Big Thicket search here.

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-- Focus on Fitzpatrick --

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New article about Cornell's John Fitzpatrick here. Ivory-bill stuff starts about 1/4 of way into the piece.

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-- IBWO Foundation Kicks Off --

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Article on the IBWO Foundation gala (last evening) here.

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-- Like Father, Like Son --

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Recently, John V. Dennis Jr. participated in the Cornell Big Woods IBWO search -- here. John is the son of his more famous ornithologist father who made Ivory-bill headlines decades ago (but also contributed much else to ornithology). I believe John Jr. is also in the process of writing a book about his dad's birding endeavors. Jerry Jackson's son has helped his dad search for the elusive woodpecker on occasion, also. And in the late 80's Fred Sibley believed he may have heard an Ivory-bill call in Mississippi.... Yo, David, get with the program! ; - )

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-- Updates Continue --

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Both Auburn's Dr. Hill and Cornell's Mobile Search Team have posted new updates (use the links at left to get there). Some interesting things said, but nothing conclusive Ivorybill-wise. The mobile search team has finished up at Pearl River and is moving on to the Pascagoula River region of Mississippi --- good to hear, as Miss. remains the most under-explored IBWO-likely state, unless much more is going on there than has been publicized.
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-- More Arkansas Thoughts --

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Thanks to "Bootstrap Analysis" for calling attention to a Dec. article in the Journal of Wildlife Management, by wildlife biologist Albert Bivings regarding the persistence of Ivory-bills in Arkansas, here.

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