By Katie Finch, Senior Nature Educator
In the Nature Center, we have a room full of dead birds. It’s a small room, off a corner of the live animal room on the first floor. The birds are the collection of Ralph Simpson, a self-taught naturalist from Warren, Pennsylvania. He collected and preserved most of the specimens in the late 1800’s through the early 1900’s. Shooting and collecting was still an acceptable way to study birds at the time.
A collection like this is impossible to create today because we now have legal protections for most wildlife. And the way we view the natural world and our role have changed. Many find this small room fascinating. There are warblers and songbirds, hawks and owls, shorebirds and ducks. There are over one hundred preserved birds. Looking at a bird that is still and up close rarely happens in the wild. And some of the birds in that room are no longer found in the wild.
Two of the species are extinct: the Passenger Pigeon and the Carolina Parakeet. Once the most abundant bird on the planet, the last documented Passenger Pigeon died in 1916 and the last Carolina Parakeet in 1918. And one more will be added to the list – the Bachman’s Warbler.
When I started researching some of the birds in this room, I was surprised that the Bachman’s Warbler was not officially listed as extinct. It has been on the list of Endangered Species in the United States since 1967. The last confirmed sighting of this small warbler was in 1977 in Florida.
In the United States, the process of declaring a species officially extinct is a long one, rightly so. Like the Bachman’s Warbler, most species are put on the Threatened or Endangered Species List first. This list is administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). Once on the list, the species, and the habitats they rely on, are given additional protection to aid in their survival. They are well observed, studied and documented to better understand their needs and their population status.
A species is only removed, or delisted, from this list for three reasons. One, the information that puts it on the list was wrong and the species’ survival is not actually threated. Two, the species recovers and no longer needs protections. The Bald Eagle, removed from the list in 2007, is a well-known success story. The third reason a species is delisted is that is has gone extinct.
Two years ago, the USFWS put out a document, also known as a rule, proposing that 23 species be delisted because of extinction. One of them is the Bachman’s Warbler.
This small warbler was uncommon when it was originally identified by western science in the late 1800s. Its population was contained to swampy habitats in the south, then migrating to Cuba in winter. Its extinction is attributed to loss of habitat. Much of its historic range was cleared for agriculture or cut for timber. While ornithologist have searched for this tiny warbler over the years, there doesn’t seem to be much argument. The Bachman’s Warbler is probably extinct.
Another bird on the list of 23 proposed extinct species may have a different outcome ¾ the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. There is not an Ivory-billed Woodpecker in the Simpson bird collection at Audubon. But I remember first hearing about this controversial woodpecker at a talk given ten years ago by someone who spent months trying to confirm its existence. It was a story of an impressive bird and drama in science. And the story is not over.
The Ivory-billed requires large tracts of forests and was historically found in the swampy forests in American’s south. (Similar habitat to the Bachman’s Warbler.) It was called the “Lord God Bird”, which is supposedly what someone might say after spotting it. It is the 3rd largest woodpecker in the world. In this region, the Pileated Woodpecker is the closest in looks and size but is smaller by several inches in wingspan and length.
The last confirmed sighting of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker was in 1944. Since then, there have been lots of reported, but unconfirmed, sightings. Years long searches have covered hundreds of thousands of acres looking for this bird. There are fuzzy photos, distant videos, and faint recordings of what some claimed was an Ivory-billed Woodpecker.
But science is a community. What we claim as scientific knowledge doesn’t come from one person alone. Theories, evidence, and data are reviewed in this community. And while there are dedicated scientists that believe the Ivory-billed Woodpecker is still around, there are others that are not convinced. Even though it was proposed as extinct two years ago, the decision has been postponed several times to review new evidence, most recently in May of this year. While I can’t find any notification if a decision is coming, it should be soon.
The story of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker is dramatic and worth reading more about for anyone interested. In part because it is a question of how we determine if something exists or not. Our knowledge comes from what we can observe. If we see, hear, smell, touch, or taste something, we know it exists. But how do you prove the absence of something? And a thing’s existence doesn’t require our awareness to exist. There’s so much we just don’t know about … yet.
But because it is a question of resources, a decision needs to be made. While it won’t make a big difference in my day to day life whether the Ivory-billed Woodpecker is declared extinct or not, I’m curious about what happens to this one species we share the world with.
By Katie Finch
Audubon Community Nature Center builds and nurtures connections between people and nature. ACNC is located just east of Route 62 between Warren and Jamestown. The trails are open from dawn to dusk and birds of prey can be viewed anytime the trails are open. The Nature Center is open from 10 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. daily except Sunday when it opens at 1 p.m. More information can be found online at auduboncnc.org or by calling (716) 569-2345.
For more information on the Bachman’s Warbler, visit https://www.nps.gov/rlc/ogbfrec/bachmans.html
For more information on the Ivory Billed Woodpecker, visit https://www.fws.gov/species/ivory-billed-woodpecker-campephilus-principalis
For more information on Ralph Simpson, visit
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