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Authors: Phillip Hoose
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A WINDSTORM
After finishing his sketches, Don Eckelberry made one final visit to the ash tree. He probably wished he hadn't. Overnight, the portable railroad had moved the German prisoners much closer to the roost tree. He observed their work for a while and then turned away. Later, he wrote, “I watched as one tree came screaming down and cared to see no more.”
Twelve-year-old Gene Laird may have been the last person to spot an Ivory-bill in the United States
It has been written that Don Eckelberry had the last “authenticated” sightingâthat is, by an expertâof an Ivory-billed Woodpecker in the United States. That may be true, but he wasn't the last person to see it at the Singer Tract. Gene Laird, the twelve-year-old son of Jesse, helped his family by driving their cattle on horseback through the grand old trees. The trees at Singer were so big that their wide crowns drew together to form a leafy shield at the top, blocking sunlight from reaching the ground. Because young trees couldn't grow in the shade, spaces on the ground between the giants were wide enough for Gene to drive cattle through, giving them exercise and letting them graze on switch cane that grew beneath the trees.
There was only one small detour in his daily route. His father, having worked with Tanner and having grown to love the Ivory-billed Woodpecker himself, had Gene ride past the old ash tree and check in on the last female Ivory-bill every day. Gene did it for about a week after Don Eckelberry left, sometimes stopping to keep
the bird company for a while. Since Chicago Mill was cutting only sweet gum and oak trees, they had passed over the ash tree and moved on. The female was still there, rapping and calling for a mate that was no more. And then, as Gene Laird remembered many years later, “one day I went by there and the ash had blown down in a windstorm. She was gone. And I never saw an Ivory-billed Woodpecker again.”
the bird company for a while. Since Chicago Mill was cutting only sweet gum and oak trees, they had passed over the ash tree and moved on. The female was still there, rapping and calling for a mate that was no more. And then, as Gene Laird remembered many years later, “one day I went by there and the ash had blown down in a windstorm. She was gone. And I never saw an Ivory-billed Woodpecker again.”
Ivory-bill country in eastern Cuba
CARPINTERO REAL: BETWEEN SCIENCE AND MAGIC
The Ivory-bill is a messenger of the old days from the great forest that covered our land.
It is a link between the people of North America and Cuba. It lives between
science and magic.
It is a link between the people of North America and Cuba. It lives between
science and magic.
âGiraldo Alayón, Cuban biologist who has seen the Ivory-bill
T
HE CLOSEST RELATIVE TO THE IVORY-BILLED WOODPECKER OF THE UNITED STATES IS the Cuban Ivory-bill
(Campephilus principalis bairdii).
Most experts believe these birds are simply two populations of the same species that became separated long ago. Museum specimens of Ivory-bills from the two countries look the same, except that the Cuban birds tend to be a little smaller and the white line that runs down each side of the body starts a bit closer to the ear on the Cuban Ivory-bill. During the years when Jim Tanner was exploring the Singer Tract, scientists thought that the Cuban and U.S. birds were two separate species, but opinion changed around 1950, when biologists concluded that the slight differences in appearance wouldn't keep birds from the two populations from interbreeding if they ever came in contact.
HE CLOSEST RELATIVE TO THE IVORY-BILLED WOODPECKER OF THE UNITED STATES IS the Cuban Ivory-bill
(Campephilus principalis bairdii).
Most experts believe these birds are simply two populations of the same species that became separated long ago. Museum specimens of Ivory-bills from the two countries look the same, except that the Cuban birds tend to be a little smaller and the white line that runs down each side of the body starts a bit closer to the ear on the Cuban Ivory-bill. During the years when Jim Tanner was exploring the Singer Tract, scientists thought that the Cuban and U.S. birds were two separate species, but opinion changed around 1950, when biologists concluded that the slight differences in appearance wouldn't keep birds from the two populations from interbreeding if they ever came in contact.
Cuba was home to its own population of Ivory-bills, known only to a few ornithologists. Clearing of lowland forests reduced the Cuban Ivory-bill's habitat to the eastern mountains
Ivory-bills have been rapidly disappearing in Cuba, too, but because they have been seen there much more recently than in the United States, there's a ghost of a chance that a few birds still inhabit the rugged, rust-colored mountains of the east. Every year, teams of searchers thread their way through those jagged peaks, hauling camping gear and scientific equipment up over the powdery trails to look for them.
When they stop from time to time to gasp for breath, they send recordings of the old Cornell tape out into the mountain air, hoping an Ivory-bill will answer. So far, none has.
When they stop from time to time to gasp for breath, they send recordings of the old Cornell tape out into the mountain air, hoping an Ivory-bill will answer. So far, none has.
The Ivory-bill was featured on this now-rare Cuban stamp, issued in 1962
Since 1985, guides and scientists have spent more than forty thousand hours looking for the bird Cubans call
Carpintero real
âthe Royal Carpenter. And in all that time there have been only nine glimpses of an Ivory-bill, adding up to maybe two minutes of time. The longest sighting lasted only about twenty seconds. There are no photos.
Carpintero real
âthe Royal Carpenter. And in all that time there have been only nine glimpses of an Ivory-bill, adding up to maybe two minutes of time. The longest sighting lasted only about twenty seconds. There are no photos.
The most determined of the searchers has seen the Ivory-bill four times and has organized the expeditions that have been most successful at tracking it down. Giraldo Alayón has studied the great bird for more than thirty years, collecting scientific information and folklore in a series of files and journals. He has become as important to the Ivory-bill in Cuba as James Tanner was in the United States. He is also Cuba's national spider expert.
The son of a lensmaker, Alayón grew up in the town of San Antonio de los Baños during the years of the Cuban Revolution. Just about everything changed in San Antonio in those days except for one thingâthe movies. Even as the United States was being cursed as Cuba's enemy, even as governments were bracing for possible conflict, the Casino theater downtown kept right on showing American films.
Giraldo's future snapped into focus one Saturday night in December 1960, when he went to the movies with his sister and two friends to see a film based on Jules
Verne's
Journey to the Center of the Earth.
For two hours, eleven-year-old Giraldo sat wide-eyed as four American actors and a duck named Gertrude probed the core of the earth itself. He stared as Alexâplayed by Pat Booneâlowered himself into the chimney of a volcano. He held his breath as the giant reptile
Dimetrodon
nearly carried off Arlene Dahl. And when the great geologist Professor Oliver Lindenbrook, played by James Mason, informed his students that “the spirit of man cannot be stopped,” Giraldo Alayón knew for sure that he wanted to be a scientist.
Verne's
Journey to the Center of the Earth.
For two hours, eleven-year-old Giraldo sat wide-eyed as four American actors and a duck named Gertrude probed the core of the earth itself. He stared as Alexâplayed by Pat Booneâlowered himself into the chimney of a volcano. He held his breath as the giant reptile
Dimetrodon
nearly carried off Arlene Dahl. And when the great geologist Professor Oliver Lindenbrook, played by James Mason, informed his students that “the spirit of man cannot be stopped,” Giraldo Alayón knew for sure that he wanted to be a scientist.
NATURAL CUBA
Cuba is a big island, about the size of Pennsylvania, accounting for about half the land mass of all the islands in the West Indies. Cuba's landscape is extremely varied. There is a desert, a huge swamp much like the Everglades, and three mountain ranges with peaks almost as high as any in the eastern United States.
Because Cuba is an island, many species evolved there. Twenty-one bird species are found only in Cuba, including the world's smallest birdâthe Bee Hummingbird. Half of Cuba's 580 spider species are endemicâfound only there. Cuba has twenty-five different species of scorpions, its own crocodile, and twenty-five endemic butterfly species.
Many birds that migrate to the United States to breed in the warm, buggy months spend most of their year in Cuba.
After high school, Giraldo enrolled in Havana University, first studying physics and then switching to biology. Spiders were his passion. Their diversity of color and form and behavior fascinated him. No two seemed alike. He was never happier than when he was crawling through a cave or inspecting rocks, logs, bushes, or crevices for spiders. One night in the winter of 1970, after a spider-collecting field trip to the eastern mountains, Alayón relaxed contentedly on a log before a crackling campfire, listening to neighboring peasants tell stories of a big white-billed woodpecker of the deep forest. The way they spoke made it hard to know whether it was real or legendary. They swore it had mystical qualities, calling it the guardian spirit of the forest. Alayón's professor, Fernando Ciyas, declared that he, too, had once seen the skin of this sacred bird nailed to the back of a peasant's door, its wings stretched into the shape of a cross.
Alayón was fascinated. A huge, white-billed
spiritual
woodpecker? Later he returned to the area to collect more storiesâaccounts that deepened his interest. Woodsmen told him that this woodpecker's bones could be ground into a powder to keep evil spirits away. Others repeated that the bird's spirit guarded the forest. The only problem was that hardly anyone he interviewed had actually
seen
this creature they called
Carpintero real.
Did it really exist?
spiritual
woodpecker? Later he returned to the area to collect more storiesâaccounts that deepened his interest. Woodsmen told him that this woodpecker's bones could be ground into a powder to keep evil spirits away. Others repeated that the bird's spirit guarded the forest. The only problem was that hardly anyone he interviewed had actually
seen
this creature they called
Carpintero real.
Did it really exist?
Alayón went to museums and libraries, just as Jim Tanner had in the United States, to pore through books and specimen cabinets for any scraps of information at all about the Ivory-bill. There was precious little. The Spaniards who had ruled Cuba
for four hundred years had seemingly overlooked it. No scientist mentioned it at all until the 1860s, and in the century that followed there were only two detailed reports.
for four hundred years had seemingly overlooked it. No scientist mentioned it at all until the 1860s, and in the century that followed there were only two detailed reports.
After 1900, most of Cuba's forests were cleared for growing sugarcane. The few scientists who knew about the Ivory-bill worried that it had become extinct in Cuba. But in the 1940s and 1950s, two U.S.-led expeditions rediscovered the species. The second quest, led by scientists George and Barbara Lamb, found six mated pairs in a hidden mountain forest known as Bandilero. This land was owned by two U.S. companies. The Lambs believed that if a preserve could be established, enough breeding birds might remain to rebuild the population and save the species.
THE CUBAN REVOLUTION
All during the 1950s a storm had been gathering in Cuba. A growing number of Cubans were tired of having their country ruled by Fulgencio Batista, a corrupt dictator who allowed wealth to become concentrated in the hands of a few. Some thought the United States had too much control over Cuba's economy, culture, and land. During that decade a young lawyer, Fidel Castro, the son of a wealthy sugar planter, led rebel forces against the government from Ivory-bill countryâremote mountain outposts in the eastern part of the island. The rebels took over in 1959, and Castro became the head of the government.
Relations between the United States and Cuba froze solid when Castro declared himself a Communist and accepted support from the United States' global enemyâthe Soviet Union. In 1960 Cuba took over all U.S. property on the island, and most U.S. workers scrambled for home. President John F. Kennedy quickly outlawed U.S. trade with Cuba, and most contact between U.S. and Cuban scientistsâincluding research on the Ivory-billed Woodpeckerâall but stopped for more than three decades.
But the Cuban Revolution changed everything. In 1959, after the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista had collapsed and rebels took control, most Americans left in haste and the Cuban government took over the land at Bandilero. Once again the phantom woodpecker seemed to slip away into the twilight of legend. There were no more Ivory-bill reports at all until one day in 1968 when a biologist named Orlando Garrido happened upon a lone female while collecting reptiles at a mountain forest known as Cupeyal. From its safe vantage point high in a pine tree, the great glossy bird had hitched its way around from behind the trunk to get a clear look at the startled Garrido. It cocked its head and inspected him for a while, uttered a sharp yelp, and shot off across a valley. Garrido had no idea that the Ivory-bill was on the brink of extinction, but he did recall that he had a book about it back in his Havana office. He remembered photos of a baby bird on a man's arm and head. These, of course, were the famous photos in Jim Tanner's book. Garrido then wrote about his discovery.
Almost a decade later, in the late 1970s, Giraldo Alayón read Garrido's report and questioned him about the Ivory-bill he had seen. The two scientists began to converse excitedly at the University of Havana about organizing a new expedition to search for it. Since the older and better-known Garrido was often
pulled away to lead field trips throughout Cuba, Alayón took the lead. Again and again, he traveled to the mountains, interviewing country people, listening to more stories, and mapping the places they told him about. Finding this lost bird became an obsession. Like so many researchers before him, dark-eyed, mustachioed Giraldo Alayón felt himself drawn toward this elusive creature that seemed to exist in a dimension all its own.
pulled away to lead field trips throughout Cuba, Alayón took the lead. Again and again, he traveled to the mountains, interviewing country people, listening to more stories, and mapping the places they told him about. Finding this lost bird became an obsession. Like so many researchers before him, dark-eyed, mustachioed Giraldo Alayón felt himself drawn toward this elusive creature that seemed to exist in a dimension all its own.
SWIMMING AGAINST THE TIDE
While many Americans who lived in Cuba fled the island after the revolution, one man was trying to get
in.
Dr. Lester Short, Curator of Ornithology at the American Museum of Natural History, was a stocky man whose broad face was fringed with a whitening beard. He probably knew more about woodpeckers than anyone else in the world. His book
Woodpeckers of the World
was a bible for ornithologists. There were few woodpeckers on earth that Lester Short hadn't seen. One was the Ivory-bill.
in.
Dr. Lester Short, Curator of Ornithology at the American Museum of Natural History, was a stocky man whose broad face was fringed with a whitening beard. He probably knew more about woodpeckers than anyone else in the world. His book
Woodpeckers of the World
was a bible for ornithologists. There were few woodpeckers on earth that Lester Short hadn't seen. One was the Ivory-bill.
For twelve years Short tried in vain to get permission from the U.S. and Cuban governments to search for the Ivory-bill in Cuba. He filled out endless forms and wrote countless letters. But always there was another form to fill out, always another official to consult, always someone else who had to grant the final permission.
But then, in August 1984, Short received an unexpected call from a man who introduced himself as Comandante Universo Sanchez Alvarez, director of Cuba's Bureau of Flora, Fauna, and Protected Areas. Sánchez Alvarez wished to invite Dr. Short to Cuba to help search for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. Sánchez Alvarez hoped that if the bird could be found again, Short's worldwide reputation might help Cuban scientists make a case for creating a large nature preserve in the forest to protect it.
ORLANDO GARRIDO
Dr. Orlando Garrido, the Cuban biologist who saw the Ivory-bill in 1968, was at one time a world-class tennis player. But even in a big match, biology was never far from his mind. In 1959, while representing Cuba in the Davis Cup tennis competition, Garrido was about to serve the ball to his Australian opponent when he noticed a huge beetle crawling slowly across the court in front of him. It was a magnificent specimen. Raising his hand, Garrido signaled the referee to stop play, and as the crowd watched in amazement, he walked to the sidelines, found an empty tennis ball can, went back to the court, and carefully scooped up the insect and placed it inside. Only when the lid was tightly secured did he walk back to resume play.
Short arrived in February 1985, along with Cornell sound
technician George Reynard. Their guide was Giraldo Alayón. Alayón led the Americans to Cupeyal, where Orlando Garrido had last seen the bird seventeen years earlier. The explorers pushed themselves to cover twelve miles a day, often leaning into a hard, driving rain. They saw no birds, but now and again they came upon trees whose bark had been scaled back, suggesting that maybe a lone Ivory-bill had passed through.
technician George Reynard. Their guide was Giraldo Alayón. Alayón led the Americans to Cupeyal, where Orlando Garrido had last seen the bird seventeen years earlier. The explorers pushed themselves to cover twelve miles a day, often leaning into a hard, driving rain. They saw no birds, but now and again they came upon trees whose bark had been scaled back, suggesting that maybe a lone Ivory-bill had passed through.
On the morning of the fifth day an old man rode into their camp on horseback. Dismounting, he introduced himself as Felipe Montero Rodriguez, a logger who had been cutting trees in those mountains for thirty years. He said he had information for the men seeking the
Carpintero real.
Explaining that he had kept track of the bird because he loved it, Señor Rodriguez reported that Ivory-bills had declined steadily throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s until they seemed to be completely gone in 1977âor so he thought. But just a few weeks before, while he was working, he was startled to hear the sound of a familiar crack of bone against wood. Dropping his blade at his feet, he crashed through the forest at a full sprint until he saw itâa bird bigger than the Cuban Crow, black-and-white, with a black crest pointing forwardâa female Ivory-bill! He said the tree was only about five miles away from where they were now.
Carpintero real.
Explaining that he had kept track of the bird because he loved it, Señor Rodriguez reported that Ivory-bills had declined steadily throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s until they seemed to be completely gone in 1977âor so he thought. But just a few weeks before, while he was working, he was startled to hear the sound of a familiar crack of bone against wood. Dropping his blade at his feet, he crashed through the forest at a full sprint until he saw itâa bird bigger than the Cuban Crow, black-and-white, with a black crest pointing forwardâa female Ivory-bill! He said the tree was only about five miles away from where they were now.
That was good enough for Alayón and Short. They folded their tents, struck camp, and followed the old man's hand-drawn map. They searched for another three days without success, but they had no doubt that his detailed story had the ring of truth. Lester Short returned to New York convinced that there were still Ivory-bills in Cuba. Finding them would be like finding a needle in a haystackâand one that moved at that. But they were out there. The team had simply not yet found the right place to search.
BOOK: The Race to Save the Lord God Bird
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