Untitled Document

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

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Total Clips: 10

	Date	Outlet
Rare Woodpecker Seen in Florida	09/27/2006	Discovery Channel
It's no rare bird to controversy	09/27/2006	St. Petersburg Times
Time For Harvest: Shrimp farming in the Black Belt	09/27/2006	Selma Times Journal
NYC weighs restaurant trans fat ban	09/27/2006	Fort Wayne Journal Gazette
Hunt for ivory-billed woodpecker to continue in Arkansas	09/26/2006	Gainesville Sun, The
Evidence of 'Extinct' Woodpecker in Florida, Experts Say	09/26/2006	National Geographic
Researchers Rare Woodpecker Sighted	09/26/2006	Washington Post
On Florida's panhandle, a team of ornithologists is raising hopes again for the grail bird's existen	09/26/2006	National Audobon Society
Florida ivory?	09/26/2006	Bird Life International
Alabama cotton crop suffers through "different" year	09/26/2006	Southeast Farm Press - USA


Rare Woodpecker Seen in Florida 09/27/2006 Discovery Channel		Return to Top
Sept. 27, 2006 After spending months in remote northwest Florida swamps searching for the ivory-billed woodpecker, researchers say they have seen and heard the rare bird once believed to be extinct. But Auburn University ornithologists, who published their findings in Canada's Avian Conservation and Ecology journal online Tuesday, failed to capture a picture of the large woodpecker, which makes a distinct double rapping sound. That lack of evidence means doubt about the bird's return remains. The bird was thought to be extinct until 2004 when Cornell University researchers released recordings and an inconclusive grainy video after searching for it in the swamps of eastern Arkansas. The last confirmed ivory-billed sighting was in 1944. Auburn ornithologist Geoffrey Hill headed the four-month Florida search that ended in April. He said his team would return to the Choctawhatchee River basin sometime around November with better equipment to try to get photographs. 'On 14 occasions different team members have seen the bird. We heard that double knock, it's a sound the ivory-billed makes that no other bird makes, but we didn't get a clear video of the bird,' Hill said. 'I think people should be skeptical. I think they should demand clear photographic evidence. I might start to get skeptical myself thinking, 'I've seen this bird,' but how could I have seen a bird that it is impossible to photograph,' he said. Hill said team members heard the bird's unique call 41 times.
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It's no rare bird to controversy 09/27/2006 St. Petersburg Times Craig Pittman, staff writer		Return to Top
The news last year that researchers had rediscovered the rare ivory billed woodpecker in the swamps of Arkansas set off a storm of controversy. On Tuesday, researchers led by an Auburn University professor said they have found the elusive ivory bill, too - this time in the swamps along the Choctawhatchee River in the Florida Panhandle. And once again the news of a possible sighting of the bird believed to be extinct since the 1940s has touched off a flurry of controversy. The wilderness where the Auburn team says it found the birds - at least a pair and possibly three -is near the site of a proposed $300-million airport to be built on 4,000 acres donated by the St. Joe Co., the state's largest private landowner. St. Joe hopes to develop the 70,000 acres of forest and swamp around the site. The Federal Aviation Administration approved the airport last week. Auburn University professor Geoffrey Hill said bloggers already have accused his research team of announcing the discovery just to try to block the airport, which has been opposed by a majority of local voters and by environmental groups. "Honest to God, I didn't even hear about this airport until today," Hill said. "I'm a scientist, not a politician." Hill said researchers saw the birds and have sound recordings, but no pictures. They say they first spotted it by accident in May 2005. Hill and two research assistants, Tyler Hicks and Brian Rolek, were paddling kayaks along the Choctawhatchee when suddenly Rolek saw a flash of wings and blurted out, "What was THAT?" Hill asked Rolek to describe the bird he had seen. As he heard it, Hill was not happy. People who claim to have spotted an ivory bill are sometimes regarded as kooks or frauds. "I knew it could lead to trouble," Hill said. Still, he said, "you have a duty to follow forward and do something about it." The news that the ivory bill might make its home near the airport site electrified the project's opponents. "We certainly need to do everything we can to make sure its habitat is secure," said Melanie Shepherdson of the Natural Resources Defense Council. Until there is better proof, though, federal officials will take no action regarding the airport or anything else. "Somebody will say this is a great way to stop an airport, but at this point it's difficult to speculate" what effect a confirmed discovery might have, said Tom McKenzie of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. St. Joe spokesman Jerry Ray expressed doubt that the discovery would affect the airport, because the site "is clear-cut land or young planted pine plantations, habitat that is not suitable for ivory-billed woodpeckers," he wrote in an e-mail. He did not address the surrounding 70,000 acres. Known as the Holy Grail of dedicated birders, the ivory bill is one of the largest species of woodpecker in the world. It once ranged across the Southeast. Sometimes called the Lord God Bird, the ivory bill was known for the two-note boom of its bill as it ripped into tree bark in search of edible grubs and beetle larvae. Prized by American Indians who believed that its chisel-sized bill possessed magical powers, the bird was hunted in the late 1800s for its feathers, popular on ladies hats. Meanwhile logging felled thousands of acres of forest, wiping out most of the old-growth trees where ivory bills like to nest. Florida was the bird's North American stronghold because of the state's warm climate and swampy terrain. But the last confirmed sighting in the state occurred near Orlando in 1924. The last conclusive sighting in the United States was in 1944 in Louisiana. Frequent reports that the bird had been spotted again were usually dismissed because a common relative, the pileated woodpecker, resembles it. The ivory bill is larger, about 20 inches tall with a wingspan of almost a yard and dramatic plumage of red, black and white. Last year, though, Cornell University researchers announced they had video of an ivory bill flying through Arkansas' Big Woods area. But skeptics have questioned the blurry video, and Cornell researchers plan to return to Arkansas to get better evidence. In Florida, Hill led a small team back into the Choctawhatchee's swamps searching for proof. The Auburn group, which included a Canadian expert on bird recordings, searched the Choctawhatchee basin off and on through May of this year. The broad, shallow river, which flows 170 miles from Alabama to Choctawhatchee Bay, is known as one of the best in Florida for canoeing because so much of the land along its banks is still wilderness. The state owns about 60,000 acres of it, and that's where the searchers concentrated their efforts, north of a one-diner town named Bruce. "We moved through the area daily in kayaks and by foot, looking and listening for ivory billed woodpeckers," they wrote this week in the magazine Avian Conservation and Ecology. Rolek camped in the swamp for days on end, Hill said, subsisting on little but spaghetti and hope. Because there were usually no more than two researchers at a time wading through the swamp, they were unable to stake out 100 or so potential nesting sites, Hill said. With better funding from Auburn, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the nearby Nokuse Plantation research center, Hill intends to bring a larger group back this fall and try again for photos or something even more definite. "It's not a phantom," Hill said. "It's a vertebrate animal that lives in the forest. There are eggs, feathers, poop - DNA."
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Time For Harvest: Shrimp farming in the Black Belt 09/27/2006 Selma Times Journal Victor Inge		Return to Top
MOSSES - Jumbo shrimp are being grown in this small rural town in Lowndes County, a land more fitting for cows and horses. In the 1950s, when Lee Earnest Jackson started developing the area's first rural water system, tests revealed the salt content was high. What Jackson discovered was an 80 million year old saltwater aquifer, trapped beneath the surface of the Black Belt. Years later his son, Lee Jackson would read of a farmer in Alabama who was growing shrimp in a pond in Hale County, and the idea was hatched. Dr. David Teichert-Coddington, owner of Green Prairie Aqua Farm in Forkland, began mentoring Lee Jackson in 2000. The next year, Jackson got started on his own. Jackson will soon be making his sixth harvest of Pacific White shrimp, which grow to the jumbo size most seafood lovers prefer - and they're purely organic. There are five growers in Alabama producing shrimp in the Black Belt. Production this year will be 400,000 pounds on 80 acres of ponds, which will create $920,000, according to the Alabama Cooperative Extension System Sen. Hank Sanders, D-Selma, met Auburn President Dr. Ed Richardson and a large contingent of professors and specialists who have worked with Jackson to perfect his operation, at Jackson-Bay Boy Farms to tour the facilities on Wednesday. Jesse Chappell, assistant professor and cooperative extension fisheries specialist, cast a net to take samples. It's time for the harvest. "The proof is in the pudding, gentlemen," Jackson said, showing off jumbo shrimp grown about 200 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. But these were cooked. His mother, Daisy Jackson, served a spread of shrimp skewers, grilled shrimp, shrimp salad, grilled Boston butts, chicken and all the findings, grilled by Jackson's cousin, Ray Brown. She insisted that everyone eat, and take a plate with them. Most obliged. The talk was about the next step for Jackson. Sen. Sanders had eaten shrimp and grits at the farm before. He knew what to expect. "It's important to take what you have, to make what you need," Sanders said, referring to Jackson taking what could have been considered a setback and turning it into an opportunity. In Lowndes County, a rural setting with 9 percent unemployment - estimated to be higher than 20 percent in Mosses - the development of a processing plant could be the next step. Though only seasonal, the addition of any jobs for several months out of the year would be welcomed, said Jackson. Jackson, the first and only African American shrimp grower in the country, serves as vice president of the newly incorporated Alabama Inland Shrimp Producer's Association. It was founded through a grant from State Sen. Bobby Singleton, D-Greensboro, to promote the newly emerging industry. Teichert-Coddington serves a president of the association. Dr. David B. Rouse, Auburn department head of fisheries and allied aquacultures, works to improve grower's conditions. "Any type of processor would be a good venture here," he said. "It would require some extra labor." Richardson was impressed with the work of his staff, who have studied and taught graduate studies using Jackson's farm. Rouse said they are even researching uses for the discarded heads and shells, which would be a byproduct of a processor. "The product that's organic. That's going to sell," Richardson said. "We're going to have to develop some type of processor here." Another idea Auburn is experimenting with is growing flounder, pompano and redfish. "The flounder can handle cooler temperatures," Rouse said. The shrimp have proven to be viable. Chappell is excited about Jackson's upcoming harvest. It's been perfected sine the first and even second years - even the shrimp's introduction to the pond in early June. "Before we put them in we have to put them through an acclimation process. We had a nursery set up here," Chappell said. "When we harvest we have to be just as careful not to stress the shrimp. We have to bring the water down slowly, which takes about a day or two. We want them to swim with the water." For Jackson, his focus is on getting the "value added" aspects of the industry. He said his economies of scale call for additional ponds and the ability to process the shrimp on-site. "It would require some extra labor," Jackson said. "And that means it could have an economic impact. I'm calling on all the champions of economic development in the Black Belt to assist us in getting it done." Jackson said he envision a processor in Mosses hiring up to 100 employees seasonally, who would not only process and package shrimp, but possibly catfish and the new fish crops that may not be far away from being harvested in saltwater ponds. His father said he always supported his son in the shrimp endeavor on his farm. The talk of expansion made him smile. "I want to get another 100 acres that we could use for expansion," the elder Jackson told Richardson.
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NYC weighs restaurant trans fat ban 09/27/2006 Fort Wayne Journal Gazette		Return to Top
This roundup of briefs includes mention of AU scientists' story on the Ivory-billed Woodpecker beging published in the Avian Conservation and Ecology Journal. A brief also appeared in the Pensacola Post Dispatch, Daily Sentinel and Arizona Star. Three years after New York banned smoking in restaurants, health officials are talking about prohibiting something they say is almost as bad: artificial trans fatty acids. The city health department unveiled a proposal Tuesday that would bar cooks at any of the city’s 24,600 food service establishments from using ingredients that contain the artery-clogging substance, commonly listed on food labels as partially hydrogenated oil. Artificial trans fats are found in some shortenings, margarine and frying oils and turn up in foods from pie crusts to french fries to doughnuts. Doctors agree that trans fats are unhealthy in nearly any amount, but a spokesman for the restaurant industry said he was stunned the city would seek to ban a legal ingredient found in millions of American kitchens. “Labeling is one thing, but when they totally ban a product, it goes well beyond what we think is prudent and acceptable,” said Chuck Hunt of the New York State Restaurant Association. 52 treated after Jersey chemical release A trucking company worker damaged a pressurized tank containing sulfur dioxide Tuesday, releasing a cloud of gas that sickened dozens of people in Elizabeth, N.J., authorities said. Fifty-two people were decontaminated and taken to area hospitals, said city fire director Onofrio Vitullo. Several, including a firefighter, reported trouble breathing, but none of the injuries appear to be serious, Vitullo said. Witnesses said people exposed to the gas began to vomit. The accident occurred about 3 p.m. as a worker was attempting to dismantle a pressurized tank. The worker snapped the neck off and the cloud was released, Vitullo said. Doubts linger about woodpecker’s return After spending months in remote northwest Florida swamps searching for the ivory-billed woodpecker, researchers say they have seen and heard the rare bird once believed to be extinct. But Auburn University ornithologists, who published their findings in Canada’s Avian Conservation and Ecology journal online Tuesday, failed to capture a picture of the large woodpecker, which makes a distinct double rapping sound. That lack of evidence means doubt about the bird’s return remains. The bird was thought to be extinct until 2004 when Cornell University researchers released recordings and an inconclusive grainy video after searching for it in the swamps of eastern Arkansas. The last confirmed ivory-billed sighting was in 1944. Teen sentenced to life in Horowitz murder A teenager convicted of murdering the wife of defense attorney and TV legal analyst Daniel Horowitz was sentenced Tuesday in Martinez, Calif., to life in prison without parole. Scott Dyleski was 16 when he bludgeoned and stabbed his neighbor, Pamela Vitale, 45, in her Lafayette home last October. He avoided the death penalty because of his age, now 17, but his lawyer argued he should get 25 years to life because of his youth and troubled upbringing. Dyleski sat emotionless as Judge Barbara Zuniga delivered the maximum sentence. “The one time I saw you show any emotion was when the autopsy photos were up on the wall,” the judge said. “I saw you lean forward and your mouth fell open. ... You were absolutely fascinated by your handiwork.” White House freezes global warming report The Bush administration has blocked release of a report that suggests global warming is contributing to the frequency and strength of hurricanes, the journal Nature reported Tuesday. The possibility that warming conditions may cause storms to become stronger has generated debate among climate and weather experts. Nature said weather experts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – part of the Commerce Department – in February set up a seven-member panel to prepare a consensus report on the views of agency scientists about global warming and hurricanes. According to Nature, a draft of the statement said that warming may be having an effect. In May, when the report was expected to be released, panel chairman Ants Leetmaa received an e-mail from a Commerce official saying the report needed to be made less technical and was not to be released, Nature reported.
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Hunt for ivory-billed woodpecker to continue in Arkansas 09/26/2006 Gainesville Sun, The Annie Bergman, Associated Press		Return to Top
This AP story also appeared in the Florida Times Union. Arkansans should not be worried that the search for the ivory-billed woodpecker will leave the state and move to Florida after news that researchers there have seen and heard the elusive bird, wildlife officials say. Ornithologists at Auburn University in Alabama and Windsor University in Ontario published a report Tuesday in Canada's online journal Avian Conservation and Ecology, claiming the woodpecker may live along the Choctawhatchee River in the Florida panhandle. The report came after researchers documented 14 sightings and extensive sound recordings of the bird after spending months in Florida's northwestern swamps. However, they failed to capture a picture of the large woodpecker with the white bill that makes a distinct double rapping sound. "It doesn't change the findings from Arkansas," said Connie Bruce, director of marketing and communication for Cornell University's ivory-billed woodpecker project. "Searches will be taking place throughout the southeast, building on the fact that there is reason to search in these places." The bird was thought extinct until 2004 when Cornell researchers released recordings and a grainy video after searching for it in the swamps of eastern Arkansas. The video, however, was deemed inconclusive, and the last confirmed ivory-billed sighting was in 1944. Dennis Widner, manager of the Cache River Wildlife Management Area where the bird was first spotted, said he was elated to hear the news out of Florida and hopes the teams there will be able to capture the woodpecker on film. Widner said he is certain the ivory-billed woodpecker lives in Arkansas, even though search teams had found no new confirmation of the bird's existence in the state last season. Widner said researchers and birders will still be drawn to the state to look for the bird. "There's just too much evidence that was gathered over the first couple of years," Widner said. "When you look what they got in Florida, it's basically the same evidence" as they gathered in Arkansas. The search for the ivory-billed woodpecker will begin again in Arkansas in January, Bruce said. Arkansas will be one of 18 search sites across the southeast, along with sites in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina and Texas, she said.
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Evidence of 'Extinct' Woodpecker in Florida, Experts Say 09/26/2006 National Geographic Richard A. Lovett		Return to Top
The elusive ivory-billed woodpecker may be living in Florida, according to new evidence. The birds, long believed extinct, may survive along the Choctawhatchee River in the state's panhandle, scientists report today in the online scientific journal Avian Conservation and Ecology (map of Florida). Geoff Hill, a biologist at Alabama's Auburn University, and a team of researchers say they found the Florida birds on a kayak trip in May 2005. The research trip came just after the news broke that the ivory-bill had been reported in the Big Woods region of eastern Arkansas. The Arkansas sighting was later challenged by ornithologists, who argued that it was impossible to rule out the more common pileated woodpecker. Because the last confirmed sighting of an ivory-bill was in Louisiana in 1944, the Arkansas "discovery" was hailed at the time as the ornithological equivalent of finding Elvis alive, and the event catapulted the birds to celebrity status. Lucky Find Hill's first encounter with the bird was quite unexpected. "We were inspired by the reports from Arkansas," he said, "but we didn't want to follow the crowd, so we decided to search some areas closer to Auburn." Initially his goal was to follow up on a report phoned in ten years earlier by someone who thought he'd seen one of the birds on Alabama's Pea River. A day kayaking that river revealed disappointingly little in the way of potential ivory-bill habitat, so his team decided to shift to the Choctawhatchee. That river, he says, is little known among ornithologists. "I didn't even know how to pronounce the name," he said. With no maps and no real idea of where they were going, the group launched their kayaks. Within an hour, Hill says, one of his research assistants, Brian Rolek, spotted an ivory-bill in flight. At the same time, Hill says, he heard a "double knock"—the unusual pecking sound that distinguishes the ivory-bill from other types of woodpeckers. "It was just to be a weekend outing looking for potential habitat," Hill later said in a statement. "We really never dreamed we'd actually find an ivory-bill." The following weekend the team returned to the river, where another of Hill's assistants, Tyler Hicks, reported that he got a clear view of a female woodpecker. Hicks didn't have the opportunity to snap a photo, but he says he saw the distinctive plumage of the ivory-bill, which has a white trailing edge on the upper wing, white stripes down its back, and an all-black crest. Hill and his colleagues are confident of their discovery but aware that they have yet to prove it. "The only evidence that would constitute irrefutable proof is a clear photograph or video," Hill said in his statement, "and such an image has to date eluded us." He says his team has had 14 sightings and identified 300 sounds that match descriptions of ivory-billed woodpeckers. They have also found nest cavities that are too large for other local birds and uncovered places where ivory-bills appear to have been pecking on trees. No Slam Dunk Even though Hill's reports fall "well short of proof," the finding is "intriguing," said David Sibley, author and illustrator of the Sibley Guide to Birds. Sibley was one of the scientists who questioned the Arkansas videotapes from last year. "More searching is essential, and hopefully that will lead to the proof that everyone wants to see," Sibley said by email. The find is extremely exciting, adds Greg Butcher, director of bird conservation for the National Audubon Society. "Nothing is confirmed, but there is a lot of good evidence," he said. "They seem to have found some very good habitat and have been very diligent in trying to document it." The region where Hill's team is working, Butcher said, contains groves of old, bottomland hardwood trees, which are "very appropriate habitat" for ivory-billed woodpeckers. Deforestation played a major role in dooming the ivory-bill. Populations of the bird plummeted in the first half of the 20th century due to wholesale logging of their habitat. But much of that habitat has now regrown, Butcher says. "We're hoping that there were enough patches left at that time … and that a few individuals were able to hold on and maintain the population," he said. "There's every reason to believe that a population could expand if there are still breeding pairs around today." Amateur birders are at least as excited. "When I first heard about the ivory-billed woodpecker sightings in Arkansas, I was skeptical," said David Hatfield, a birder from Portland, Oregon. "But after I read [Tim Gallagher's] book, The Grail Bird, about the Arkansas research, I switched to thinking that the bird still does exist. "The new findings strengthen my belief that the ivory-bill has survived," Hatfield said. "That such a large and colorful bird appears to have survived for over 50 years without proof of existence is good news for the ivory-bill, a positive note on the state of our wildernesses, and a fantastic story."
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Researchers Rare Woodpecker Sighted 09/26/2006 Washington Post MELISSA NELSON		Return to Top
This AP story also appeared in: Chicago Tribune, Forbes, Boston Globe, Houston Chronicle, Seattle Post Intelligencer, Los Angeles Times, Lexington Herald-Leader, Press-Register, Daily Comet, Red Nova, Bradenton Herald, Sun-Herald (Miss.) The Ledger (Fla.), Sarasota Herald Tribune, Citrus County Chronicle, The Day, Jupiter Courier, Belleville News Democrat, Tri-City Herald, New York Post, The Tribune, San Jose Mercury news, Pioneer Press, Santa Maria Times, Boston Globe, Star Telegram, Greenwich Times, Daily Reflector, Baytown Sun, Juneau Empire, Norwalk Advocate, Macon Telegraph, Morning News, Houma Courier, CBS News, ABC News, and other print and broadcast outlets. PENSACOLA, Fla. -- After spending months in remote northwest Florida swamps searching for the ivory-billed woodpecker, researchers say they have seen and heard the rare bird once believed to be extinct. But Auburn University ornithologists, who published their findings in Canada's Avian Conservation and Ecology journal online Tuesday, failed to capture a picture of the large woodpecker, which makes a distinct double rapping sound. That lack of evidence means doubt about the bird's return remains. The bird was thought to be extinct until 2004 when Cornell University researchers released recordings and an inconclusive grainy video after searching for it in the swamps of eastern Arkansas. The last confirmed ivory-billed sighting was in 1944. Auburn ornithologist Geoffrey Hill headed the four-month Florida search that ended in April. He said his team would return to the Choctawhatchee River basin sometime around November with better equipment to try to get photographs. "On 14 occasions different team members have seen the bird. We heard that double knock, it's a sound the ivory-billed makes that no other bird makes, but we didn't get a clear video of the bird," Hill said. "I think people should be skeptical. I think they should demand clear photographic evidence. I might start to get skeptical myself thinking, 'I've seen this bird,' but how could I have seen a bird that it is impossible to photograph," he said. Hill said team members heard the bird's unique call 41 times. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is working with the federal government and some private agencies to provide additional funding for Hill's team, agency spokesman Willie Puz said. Puz said funding is in the early stages and he did not know how much the researchers would receive. Hill's five-member team from Auburn, Ala., and Ontario, Canada, conducted its search on a $10,000 budget. Hill said the extra funding should help them deliver the conclusive evidence the world is demanding. "The ultimate prize is finding pairs visiting roost holes and making babies, that would be the holy grail," said John Fitzpatrick, director of the Cornell lab, which consulted with the Auburn team. "Absent that, the intervening step is to get a photograph that allows everyone else to see the evidence and get on board." Florida officials praised the early evidence. "This will be fantastic if we can confirm the woodpeckers are there," conservation commission Chairman Rodney Barreto said in a statement. "Florida is the only state besides Arkansas to come close to confirmation in roughly 40 years."
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On Florida's panhandle, a team of ornithologists is raising hopes again for the grail bird's existen 09/26/2006 National Audobon Society		Return to Top
A New Ivory-Bill Sighting Is this a case of déjà vu all over again? Geoff Hill, an ornithologist from Alabama's Auburn University, is lead author on a paper published in Avian Conservation & Ecology that presents evidence of a population of ivory-billed woodpeckers in a remote river basin along the Choctawhatchee River near the town of Bruce, in the Florida panhandle. (The scientists will not reveal the exact location for fear of disturbing the birds.) Hill and his team present acoustic evidence and documented sightings, just as Cornell’s team had when they announced ivory-bill sightings in Arkansas in April 2005. What they don't have, however, is the smoking gun—a photograph or video of the bird. Even so, says John Fitzpatrick, the director of Cornell's Laboratory of Ornithology, which has led the ivory-bill search for the past two years, "The news coming out of Florida is very encouraging and is getting everyone psyched about this new search season. One thing this is doing is broadening the focus to search the whole range of the bird." Hill and research assistants Tyler Hicks and Brian Rolek were kayaking a section of the Choctawhatchee River in May 2005 when Rolek spotted an ivory-bill in flight and then Hill heard a double-knock. They then noted very large cavities (more than five inches high and four inches wide—too big for pileated woodpeckers) in trees and bark scaling on recently dead trees—a characteristic ivory-bill feeding technique. Their discovery prompted a yearlong search. Hill invited Daniel Mennill, an ornithologist at Ontario's University of Windsor, to join him. Mennill, an expert in bioacoustics, erected seven listening stations in the area where the ivory-bill sightings were occurring. From May 2005 to April 2006 the Auburn–Windsor search team documented 14 sightings, identified more than 300 sounds that are strikingly similar to those associated with known ivory-bill and campephilus (including kent calls and double-knocks), monitored 20 cavities that fit within the ivory-bill’s size range, and noted numerous examples of bark scaling. "Tantalizing seems to be an overused word these days, but the observations and data from Florida, as well as from Arkansas, are truly tantalizing," says Jerome Jackson, an ornithologist from Florida Gulf Coast University and author of In Search of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker. "Among the promising evidence are recordings of double-knock raps, apparently being given by two birds in response to one another, and kent vocalizations." "Using sound-analysis software to scan the recordings from the swamp, for the first few weeks we only isolated sounds of branches breaking and gunshots firing," says Mennill. "But by the middle of January we had a breakthrough. My students starting isolating double-knocks that sounded just like the double knocks I've heard from pale-billed woodpeckers in Costa Rica. We knew we were on to something big." There are no known historical recordings of double-knocks made by ivory-bills, so researchers use other campephilus species, like pale-billed woodpeckers, which also make double-knocks for comparison. Geoff Hill calls his first season searching for ivory-bills along the Choctawhatchee River a success because "we repeatedly relocated birds, made many sound recordings, and found abundant evidence of the birds' presence." But he also calls that first season a "dismal failure" because of his team’s failure to obtain a clear picture of an ivory bill. This winter his team will use remote-imaging cameras borrowed from Cornell. "Our only goal for this coming winter and spring is to get that elusive clear image," Hill adds. "Everything else—enumerating the population, assessing the habitat use, making management plan—begins after we prove that the birds exist." What do searchers from Arkansas who started the whole ivory-bill craze think? "This is what we wanted to happen," says Bobby Harrison, who made national headlines as one of the seven people in the world who insisted on having seen the ivory-bill there. "This second find confirms what I have believed for the last decade: that ivory-bills might be making a comeback. Will the critics be silenced? Maybe yes and maybe no. Some critics will not be satisfied until they hold a dead ivory bill in their own hand." To see photographs taken during the Florida search and listen to recordings, visit http://www.auburn.edu/ivorybill. —Rachel Dickinson .
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Florida ivory? 09/26/2006 Bird Life International		Return to Top
Florida ivory? Researchers from Auburn University and the University of Windsor report 14 sightings of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers in forest along the Choctawhatchee River in the panhandle of Florida between May 2005 and May 2006. All but three of the observations were naked eye only without optical aids, and no photographs of the woodpeckers were obtained. On two occasions, two birds were seen together. In addition, on 41 occasions the researchers heard sounds that matched descriptions of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers, and using automated listening stations and audio recordings from hand-held video cameras isolated 99 "double-knock" sounds and 210 "kent" calls. These, the researchers say, match historical descriptions of Ivory-billed Woodpecker acoustic signals. Examples of each are available as supplementary supporting material and can be downloaded at: http://www.ace-eco.org/ This evidence, the researchers state: "suggests that Ivory-billed Woodpeckers may be present in the forests along the Choctawhatchee River." "It would be wonderful to confirm that a viable population of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers exists" —Greg Butcher, National Audubon Society Last year, Ivory-billed Woodpeckers were reported in Arkansas. Prior to those reports, the last fully documented USA sighting was in Louisiana in 1944, and many believed the species extinct both in the USA and in Cuba, the only other country where it occurred. "It would be wonderful to confirm that a viable population of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers exists, and we hope the search by the Auburn research team will lead to just that," said Greg Butcher, Director of Bird Conservation for National Audubon Society, the BirdLife Partner in the USA. He added: "This announcement is a reminder of why it is so essential that we protect bottomland forests, wetlands and coastal habitats across the south-east, and these new sightings should reinvigorate efforts to find the bird in other portions of its historic range."
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Alabama cotton crop suffers through "different" year 09/26/2006 Southeast Farm Press - USA Paul L. Hollis		Return to Top
AU Extension cotton specialist Dale Monks is the source for this story. Every production year is different, but this one has been more different than usual. "It's a different year from what we expected and from what we’ve had in the past three years," says Dale Monks, Auburn University Extension cotton specialist. Drought conditions began affecting Alabama cattle producers this past fall, says Monks, and the dry weather persisted into the spring. "We had what is typically considered March weather during the first two weeks of May. North of here, we had temperatures in the mid to upper 40s for two or three weeks. We had some seedling disease in cotton, and the roots never got a chance to develop early in the season," he says. Cotton plants were unable to take up the little moisture that was present in the soil, and this was soon followed by nutrient deficiencies and dropped leaves, says Monks. "We planted about 570,000 acres of cotton in Alabama, and USDA has us harvesting about 530,000 acres with 40,000 acres being abandoned. We've already seen a number of acres, especially in southeast Alabama's Wiregrass region, being destroyed. The Wiregrass probably is the hardest hit region in the state. Cotton planted in that area in late April or early May didn't get a rain until the first week of July, and some of that cotton has been destroyed," he says. Compared to last year's average yield of 749 pounds per acre, Alabama cotton producers are expected to harvest about 430 pounds per acre this year, says Monks, and this forecast doesn't include the cotton that was destroyed. “Whenever we have an average yield of less than a bale per acre, that means we’ll have a few fields that’ll go 600 to 700 pounds, but a lot of fields will go less than that — we have a lot of 300-pound cotton,” he says. Low yields, says Monks, are usually accompanied by low quality. "In a year like this one, with an early boll set, we’'l more than likely see high micronaire and short staple," he says. Steady rainfall was finally seen in parts of east-central Alabama by mid-August. "With these showers, the general impression is that the drought is over. Unfortunately, we needed the rain earlier in the season. Cotton starts to perk up whenever we get rain, and it looks better. But there aren’t a lot of blooms on it because it bloomed during the latter part of July. Some of this cotton has cut out two times this season," he says. Cotton began opening in north Alabama during the last week of July, which is about a month early for those growers, says Monks. "If conditions continue to stay dry, this will be a quick crop." "With adequate rainfall," says Monks, "some mid-season varieties planted in the state still could have some potential."
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