I watched the engrossing documentary "Ghost Bird" last night. As much as I would like to believe that the Ivory-billed woodpecker is still hanging in out there, the documentary makes a pretty good case that not only is the bird almost certainly extinct, but that it's important that we stop diverting federal funds to protect its "habitat."

 

The case of the Ivory-billed woodpecker is an interesting one. As Rumsfeld said, "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." It's impossible to verify with 100% certainty that an elusive bird like the Ivory-billed isn't still around somewhere. And I think we all remember the tale of the coelacanth, which was pronounced extinct, but later found being regularly dredged up from the bottom of the ocean.

 

Human delusion, our desire to see an Ivory-billed when all we're really looking at is a Pileated woodpecker, is certainly to blame for most of the "sightings" in recent years. The difference between the Ivory-billed and the Pileated is subtle. You would need to have a trained eye, and to get a really good look at the bird, in order to distinguish between them.

 

Given that no such sighting has occurred, and that the Pileated woodpecker is known to reside in the territory where the "ghost bird" is seen, I think it's safe to conclude that these are misidentifications of the Pileated woodpecker. Most professional birders and ornithologists agree. (The Pileated really is an astonishing bird, too - a few months ago, one swooped past my window and landed on a tree trunk not 20 feet away from where I was sitting. I was quite startled.)

 

The documentary makes some sinister implications that people may be deliberately manufacturing lies in order to draw business to the small, economically-depressed Southern towns where the bird has been spotted. Times are tough everywhere, but tougher still in rural Alabama. Can you blame these towns from cashing in on "Ivory-billed mania"?

 

The worst implication of the Ivory-billed woodpecker's rumored existence is that it diverts federal funds. Funds which would otherwise be spent on birds that we know to be still in existence, but which are gravely threatened. Like the Hawaiian crow (2 remaining in the wild) or the California condor (160 left in the wild). 

 

I sincerely hope that there is still a hidden, relict population of Ivory-billed woodpeckers out there somewhere. In my heart of hearts I doubt it, but like the man's poster says, "I want to believe."