© 2002 Carel P. Brest van Kempen.....Science Art-Birds
Title: Strange Fruit
Species: Ivory-billed Woodpecker (Campephilus principalis)
Artist:
Carel P. Brest van Kempen
Image size:30" x 20"
Media: acrylic on illustration board
Date: 2002
Location: Collection of the Artist
The biggest birding news in memory
was the footage taken by David Luneau in April, 2004, of
an Ivory-billed Woodpecker (Campephilus principalis)
in Arkansas' White River Refuge, stifling, if not ending,
the controversy over the species' continued existence. A
half century had elapsed without a confirmed sight record,
despite the valiant efforts of a band of researchers and
hundreds of optimistic birders. Numerous unconfirmed sightings
and a handful of questionable photographs had kept a vapor of
hope in the air.
Luneau's video, along with a 2005 sound-recording of woodpecker drumming, was accepted as conclusive enough by experts at Cornell, then by the media, and by pretty much the rest of us to count as a rediscovery of the species. But in a paper published in the January Issue of The Auk ornithologist Jerome Jackson, a member of the Ivory-billed Recovery Team, cast doubt on the consensus by questioning the Arkansas evidence. Confirming evidence might still surface, but we might have seen the Ivorybill drift back into uncertain status. In any event, the controversy led to the redoubling of efforts to confirm the presence of the Ivory-bill, to understand its requirements, and to restore and properly manage of the ecosystem in which it formerly thrived--leaving hope for the possibility of reintroducing the Ivory-billed subspecies that might still inhabit Cuba.
