May 3, 2005
[Excerpt from] SIDE EFFECTS
Found in Arkansas: Hope on Wings
By JAMES GORMAN

Why was the discovery so powerful?

I think it is the reason for the bird's survival. It wasn't a miracle. It
wasn't luck. And it wasn't simply the resilience of nature, although that
helped. The reason for the astonishing re-emergence of a mysterious bird is
as mundane as can be. It is habitat preservation, achieved by hard, tedious
work, like lobbying, legislating and fund-raising.

There was luck involved, of course. But my favorite comment about luck was
made by Branch Rickey, who said, "Luck is the residue of design." Chance
favors the protected wetland.

Think about where the bird was found, in a national wildlife refuge, and in
an area, the Big Woods of Arkansas, that conservation organizations and
government agencies had targeted as crucial for preservation. Just south of
the Cache River refuge is the White River National Wildlife Refuge. State
refuges are nearby. And the Nature Conservancy has been buying up land in
that area.

The same is true about other likely spots. The hunt in Louisiana was in the
state's Pearl River Wildlife Management Area. When I talked to Scott Simon,
the state director of the Nature Conservancy in Arkansas, he said that
Arkansas, a poor state, had voted for an eighth-of-a-cent sales tax for
conservation, not a large amount, but a tax nonetheless.

I think the reason the discovery is so moving is that so many people worked
so hard to save and protect land, telling themselves there may be an ivory
bill out there, and that protecting the bottomland had to be important. I'm
not sure they all believed it, but they acted as if they did.

As did the searchers. Mr. Swarthout showed me one spot on the bayou where
observers on his team would sit in a canoe and wait and watch, for perhaps
10 or 12 hours. The refuge is a beautiful place, the bird is great, but
sitting in a canoe for 12 hours has to be tedious and uncomfortable.

It is possible that this is the last ivory bill, that it won't appear
again. And we have to trust the judgment and expertise of the scientists
involved on the sighting because there is no crystal-clear photograph.
Instead, there are detailed observations and an analysis of a blurry bit of
videotape.

In most cases, I might hesitate to allow myself to join in the celebration.
But I'm going with the experts in this case.

I am giving in to hope. Perhaps there are more ivory bills. I really hope
so. The thing with feathers has got me in its grip.


IN THE SPIRIT OF CONSERVATION
Debra Bowles, AMV Communications
www.orgs.muohio.edu/AudubonMiamiValley
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Rehabilitating native birds via
Second Chance Wildlife: 513 875 3433