VERMONT BIOLOGISTS JOIN SEARCH FOR RARE WOODPECKER

For Immediate Release - February 16, 2006

Contacts:
Kent McFarland / Work - (802) 457-1053 Ext. 124 / Home - (802) 457-9431 kmcfarland@vinsweb.org

Bryan Pfeiffer / Work - (802) 454-4640 / Cell - (802) 272-0888 bpfeiffer@vinsweb.org

NOTE: Local angle for Bristol, Plainfield, Sharon, Westford and Woodstock.

VERMONT BIOLOGISTS JOIN SEARCH FOR RARE WOODPECKER
WOODSTOCK, Vt. -- A team of biologists from the Vermont Institute of Natural Science begins an expedition this week to the remote swamps of Arkansas to join one of the great quests in all of birdwatching: the search for the near-mythical Ivory-billed Woodpecker.

Undaunted by prospects of venomous snakes, waist-deep muck and freezing temperatures, the six biologists will spend two weeks in canoes and on foot trying to locate and photograph the large, dashing and elusive woodpecker, long believed to be extinct.

"This may be the most remarkable birdwatching trip we've ever undertaken," said Kent McFarland, senior research biologist at VINS. "Until last year, encounters with Ivory-billed Woodpeckers were equated with sightings of Elvis and Bigfoot."

The earth shook last April, at least for ornithologists and birdwatchers, when a team lead by Cornell University announced that an Ivory-billed Woodpecker was discovered and photographed in an old-growth swamp of the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Arkansas. Long given up for extinct, the ivory-bill is now the focus of an intense search and conservation effort to restore its habitat and bring the birds back from the edge of extinction.

The VINS team includes McFarland of Woodstock, Juan Klavins of Westford (formerly Argentina), Brendan Collins of Bristol, Steve Faccio of Sharon, Bryan Pfeiffer of Plainfield and Randy Dettmers of Shutesbury, Massachusetts. With nearly a century of experience among the biologists, ranging from Paraguay to Newfoundland and most places in between, not one had ever expected to encounter an Ivory-billed Woodpecker. That all changed last April.

"We'll be living the dream of birdwatchers from around the globe," said Pfeiffer, a consulting biologist with VINS. "If I had to leave Vermont in February, there's no place I'd rather be than mucking around a swamp in Arkansas searching for these birds."

In its day, the Ivory-billed Woodpecker (Campephilus principalis) was a striking symbol of the bottomland forest wilderness that once extended across the southern United States. North America's largest woodpecker, with a wingspan of 30 inches, the ivory-bill was readily recognized by the male's dashing red crest, black-and-white wings and clean white bill. Ivory-bills roamed mature, swampy forests in search of dead and dying trees infested with the larvae of wood-boring beetles, the woodpecker's primary food. But destruction of the ivory-bill's forest habitat caused severe population declines in the 1800s, and only a handful of birds remained into the 20th century.
The last well-confirmed sighting in the United States came from northeastern Louisiana in 1943.

But now the focus is on Arkansas, where scores of field biologists and volunteer birdwatchers are at work under the direction of the renowned Cornell Lab or Ornithology. The VINS team will join a corps of volunteers, each deployed for two-week periods from November through April. The challenge is to find an Ivory-billed Woodpecker roost hole or nest hole and to get additional video documentation of the bird or birds. The ultimate goal is to learn more about the species in order to help in the protection and recovery of any remaining birds.

"The volunteers are vital to the search effort," said Dr. John Fitzpatrick, director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, based in Ithaca, NY. "Without them there's no way we could scour such a large area for ivory-bills. These folks are field biologists and avid birders -- all of them giving up their time to be part of this once-in-a-lifetime recovery project."

Dressed more like duck hunters than birdwatchers, head-to-toe in full camouflage gear, the VINS team will work from before dawn well into the evening, with the solitary goal finding and documenting on film any signs of the huge black-and-white woodpecker.

The terrain is remote and sometimes imposing. Much of the habitat can be flooded, so crews will travel by canoe. When on foot, the searchers wear chest-waders. Dense forest growth and venomous cottonmouth snakes are among the region's biodiversity, although cooler February temperatures in Arkansas may keep snakes less active.

"Those of us who study birds in Vermont are accustomed to mucky bogs, lots of bushwhacking, steep climbs, and clouds of blackflies, among other challenges," said McFarland. "So we think the VINS team is well-prepared to persevere in swamps of Arkansas. But, most of all, we hope to offer our skills in this noble effort."

As Vermont's leading institution in bird research and conservation, VINS has a well-established partnership with Cornell, which is among the country's leading centers in ornithology. The two organizations, for example, have teamed up on an innovative, Internet-based bird sighting reporting system called Vermont eBird (www.ebird.org/VINS/).

The VINS team departs Saturday for a 24-hour, non-stop drive to its base camp at Arkansas's White River National Wildlife Refuge. Said McFarland: "It will be the quintessential road trip -- with an exquisitely rare twist."

The Vermont Institute of Natural Science (VINS) is a statewide membership organization dedicated to protecting natural heritage through education and research. VINS has offices, facilities or nature centers in Woodstock, Montpelier, Quechee and Manchester. Visit VINS on the web at www.vinsweb.org.

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Note to Reporters and Editors:
Cornell University's Ivory-billed Woodpecker Press Room -
www.birds.cornell.edu/ivory/press_room/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Vermont Institute of Natural Science

27023 Church Hill Road
Woodstock, VT 05091
(802) 454-4640

www.vinsweb.org
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