60 Minutes Archive: The Lord God Bird

60 minutes rewind the ivory-billed woodpecker is one of the most  celebrated birds in u.s history a bird that   since pre-colonial times has  been an american superstar   even though it's been presumed extinct for 60  years thousands of bird watchers never gave up   searching for what they call the lord god bird so  earlier this year when it was disclosed that one   ivory-billed woodpecker had been spotted in  arkansas the reaction was extraordinary you   would have thought that a dinosaur had risen  from the dead or that elvis had returned   the ivory bill's resurrection is an amazing  story not just about the bird but the people   who are obsessed with it it's also a story  involving extraordinary luck secrecy millions   of dollars and months of searching of forest  in eastern arkansas looking for a flying needle   in a haystack they call this the big woods some  500 000 acres in arkansas it's what's left of   a forest that once covered 24 million acres and  stretched from memphis tennessee to little rock   the spectacular swamps and hardwood forests of the  south were once home to the i rebuild woodpecker   stories about the ivory-billed woodpecker go back  to the days when only native americans were here   some saw its skull as a symbol of power the  feathers as objects of beauty in victorian   times women prized those feathers for their hats  by the beginning of the last century the bird had   been nearly hunted to extinction it was said to  be so beautiful that when people saw it they said   lord god what a bird the name stuck the lord  god bird was the largest woodpecker in america   but for more than a half a century  about the only way you could see one   was stuffed it's a huge black woodpecker basically  with lightning bolts of white down the back   and a huge patch of white on the wings john  fitzpatrick is the head of the lab of ornithology   at cornell university and one of this country's  leading authorities on birds does it have a   distinctive sound it does actually it has a sound  that's been likened to the to a tin horn it's a it the first recording of that sound  was made back in 1935 in louisiana   by a team of scientists from cornell they  also filmed the first pictures of the bird   at the time the lord god bird was already on  the verge of extinction in the following decade   logging reduced its last known habitat to  thousands of stumps this has been the symbol   of what we did wrong the complete annihilation of  one of america's most treasured and spectacular   pieces of land we cut it all by the 1940s the  ivory-billed woodpecker was presumed extinct   my rebuilds are extinct they've been extinct my  entire life at least that's what gene sparling   thought in february 2004 sparling an outdoorsman  from hot springs arkansas went kayaking in the big   woods he took us close to the spot where he saw  something he'll never forget a large woodpecker   flew into the channel from above the  canopy he was headed straight towards me   sparling considered that it might be the smaller  woodpecker that's common around here called   the pileated but he ruled that out i realized  that if it was not affiliated the only other   alternative was for it to be an ivory bill  sparling made a veiled reference to his sighting   on the internet and he got a response right away  we came down you know just a few days later as   quick as we could get out of town tim gallagher  is a wildlife photographer and author from cornell   bobby harrison a college professor from alabama  they're both ivory-billed hunters bird watchers   who have been looking for the bird for years  believing it's still alive when they heard about   his sighting they immediately contacted sparling  who took them near the spot where he saw the bird   and then this bird just burst across in  front of us at close range about 65 feet away   and right in the sunlight like a big open area  like this and it was just i mean i dropped my   paddle and almost fell out of the canoe i  mean it was like getting slapped in the face   it turned on edge we had a complete view of the  back in both wings so at first you didn't think   this is an i rebuilt at that point we had both  immediately knew what we were looking at i mean we   went three years when it came out in front of  us like that and we're just knocked back for   it i mean i i said something like look at all the  white on its wings and then we just go ivory bill   and this bird was swinging up to land on the tree  and it goes whoa but so we're immediately we're   scrambling along over fallen logs and branches i  got tears in my eyes right right and here's this   oh yeah oh we just saw an ivory bill together  the first people in over 60 years to see a bird   together as soon as fitzpatrick was told of the  sighting he mapped out a search and strictly   limited information about it why did you need to  keep it so quiet as i put it to the small group of   people who'd heard about the story if we just let  this out right now it's going to be coney island   down there fitzpatrick feared that announcing the  discovery would attract bird watchers from all   over yeah we're looking at the same one linda bird  watching has become an american phenomenon the u.s   fish and wildlife service says it's the fastest  growing recreational activity in the country there's a thrasher according to the government  50 million americans are bird watchers the arca   locust versus calippi ruby throated and anna's  thousands of people packed conventions and attend   lectures on birding the d1 with the 50 millimeter  on the zoomite piece sales of bird watching   paraphernalia are up there you go from cameras  and binoculars to high-tech digital field guides   to books making bird watching a multi-billion  dollar industry in part because of this bird the ivory-billed woodpecker was reportedly  cited in a federal wildlife refuge 120 miles   long in eastern arkansas it's one of the most  exotic and inhospitable environments in america   a vast primordial ooze a place so wild that the  big woods has been called this country's amazon   well look at this will you yeah  it is absolutely spectacular it's home to 265 different species of birds  nearly a third of all the species that live in   the u.s and to a fantastic potpourri of wildlife  including cottonmouths one of the deadliest   snakes in america welcome to arkansas good  morning a few weeks after the initial sighting   field biologists were recruited to spend five  months in the big woods searching for something   but they weren't told it was the eye rebuild until  they agreed to keep it secret scott simon heads   the arkansas branch of the nature conservancy  which has helped preserve the forest where the   ivory build was cited the conservancy's job was  to raise the money for the search without telling   prospective donors what they were giving it for  unless they also agreed to keep it secret and   that's the amazing part about this i mean  a few people provided millions of dollars   in private support for this without  even confirmation of the bird   because you know they so much were enamored by  the story of hope a systematic search of the swamp   began in march of 2004. if you could actually  come around the tree some of the biologists   were assigned to deploy listening devices on two  dozen trees throughout the forest this is unit   11. these devices record for weeks at a time and  then the audio is sent to cornell for analysis   other searchers played the 1935 recording of the  ivory bill's call and then listened for an answer   they even put out decoys trying to draw the bird  out for months searchers spent long hours in the   swap waiting watching and listening last winter a  crane was brought in to get a bird's eye view from   above the treetops every day up to 20 people  went out spending up to 14 hours in the swamp   since they began a year and a half ago searchers  have spent 15 000 hours looking for the bird   the only picture of the ivory-billed woodpecker  they say they got was a lucky shot taken from   this canoe from a video camera two searchers  had rigged to run continuously watch the area   to the left above the organ the bird's  flight is visible for only four seconds   i've looked at that video how can you tell i mean  how long does it last it's like oop it's gone   it is yeah right how much can you tell from that  well there are people who look at the video and   they're basically scoffing at us saying come on  it's a blurry video what are you talking about but   the fact is there's information in that video  and as you know you can actually learn a ton   from just a few frames of video this is the video  of the bird's flight slowed down and magnified right there notice how much white there  is on this wing without black on the back   rim we see a black wing-tipped bird that  is largely white winged from underneath   so a big woodpecker with a lot of white  at the back edge of its wings and some   white in the back can only be an ivory built  woodpecker the story will continue after this it lives in the big woods region of eastern  arkansas last april 14 months after the search   began and just before the news was about  to leak the searchers announced that the   ivory-billed woodpecker had been rediscovered  it made the front page of newspapers all across   the country virtually overnight the bird became  america's latest sensation but some scientists   weren't convinced that the video evidence is  scientifically conclusive so cornell released   audio evidence called from some 18 thousand hours  of recordings in the big woods that may not be   conclusive but it believes is compelling this  is an interesting sound recorded uh on january   29th in arkansas two thousand five rush sheriff  a researcher at the lab played us a tape which   he says bears a striking resemblance to two  ivory-billed woodpeckers talking to each other that sound has been music to the ears in clarendon  arkansas the town closest to the sighting which   isn't waiting for the outcome of the scientific  debate to cash in on the woodpecker's return   clarendon now calls itself the home of the  ivory-billed woodpecker this year's annual   birding festival was all about the bird there were  even ivory bill haircuts at 25 a clip but all that   hoopla's not what matters to fitzpatrick my whole  life i've been waiting hoping thinking wondering   if this thing existed since february 2004 the eye  rebuild woodpecker's existence has been confirmed   but the bird has remained elusive somewhere in the  big woods so far only a handful of searchers have   seen it fitzpatrick is not one of them i don't  really get frustrated at that i'm i'm right now   i'd love to see this bird i can't lie at all um  i'm so glad that other people have i i mean i've wept at stories of people describing it it's a it  is it is an extremely emotional thing this bird um   i could happily go to my grave and not see it  if we could find out what's going on and save it

Channel: 60 Minutes

Views: 439,793

Keywords: 60 Minutes, CBS News, Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, ed bradley, endangered species

Id: cjRwbf1N5DQ

Length: 13min 3sec (783 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 30 2021