Fitzpatrick

Gallagher

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Black and white and read all over: Bird was the word.

News of the rediscovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker hit the media Thursday and Friday, April 28 and 29, with fervor.

Cornell researchers, a fortunate kayaker, two cabinet secretaries and two U.S. senators faced the hot glare of Washington, D.C., media Thursday morning, April 28, to announce the bird's rediscovery at a press conference. "For a bird guy, I can't begin to tell you how thrilling it is -- it's thrilling beyond words to stand here with two cabinet members at my side," said John Fitzpatrick, director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, before several hundred journalists at the Yates Auditorium, U.S. Department of the Interior. "After 60 years of fading hopes that we would ever see this spectacular bird again, the ivory-billed woodpecker has been rediscovered."

Fitzpatrick was the lead author of the article on the Science Express Web site of the journal Science that appeared the same day, announcing the rediscovery.

Following Fitzpatrick's dramatic announcement, Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton and Secretary of Agriculture Michael Johanns pledged $15 million in federal funds to purchase huge tracts of land that will enhance The Nature Conservancy's wetlands in Arkansas where the woodpecker was found.

Fitzpatrick continued to describe his excitement: "I want to remind you that this is no ordinary bird. To the 70 million Americans that are birdwatchers today and, in fact, to anybody who has ever seriously browsed a bird book, this is really the most spectacular creature we could imagine rediscovering. It is beautiful beyond description. It is America's largest woodpecker. It was -- it is -- the third largest in the world. It was one of John James Audubon's most favorite birds. One of his most beautiful paintings and compositions is the ivory-billed woodpecker." He added, "It's a magical bird."

Blanche Lincoln and Mark Prior, U.S. senators from Arkansas, plus the state's entire congressional delegation, attended the press conference. Lincoln said she grew up near the swamp where sightings of the bird led to its rediscovery.

After the press conference ended, the television networks and major newspaper reporters descended on Fitzpatrick, as well as on Cornell researcher and editor of Living Bird magazine Tim Gallagher. Also interviewed were Cornell postdoctoral expert on the ivory-billed woodpecker Martjan Lammertink; Gene Sparling, the Arkansas kayaker who first found the bird; and Bobby Harrison, an associate professor at Oakwood College in Huntsville, Ala., who made an early sighting of the bird.

Two hours after the news conference, search team members had moved to Norton's conference room at the Department of the Interior, where Domino's Pizza delivered lunch. But instead of sitting down to lunch, the searchers lined the hallway, speaking simultaneously to media on their cell phones.

Fitzpatrick spoke to major newspapers, a radio network from Canada and reporters for two British Broadcasting Corp. programs. Gallagher spoke to CBS radio and three Canadian television news programs (he also discussed his new book, "The Grail Bird," on CNN on Friday).

By the end of the afternoon, after hundreds of media calls, the cell phone batteries of all researchers had been drained.

Fitzpatrick summed up the rediscovery's importance to the media: "It fills us with hope. Just maybe, we did not destroy one of the most enchanted ecosystems in the world."