Ghost Bird (Doc 2009)
Director: Scott Crocker
Name three birds that have gone extinct. The dodo, the passenger pigeon and the ivory-billed woodpecker.
Okay, not so fast with that last one. In 2004, there was an alleged sighting of this bird in the bayous of eastern Arkansas. It caused, to put it mildly, a sensation. The ivory-billed woodpecker, a large and imposing bird, was believed extinct by the 1930s, and the last credible sighting was in 1944 by Don Eckelberry, a wildlife artist and experienced birder. It was a solitary female. (I grew up in Eckelberry’s home town, and met him a few times through mutual friends. A great artist.)
Subsequent sightings were almost always the pileated woodpecker, almost as large and a beautiful creature in itself. These birds can occasionally be seen here in Portland. The ivory-billed woodpecker is marked differently, and noticeably so, but hope, and the urge to exploit, spring eternal.
The nearest town, Brinkley (pop. 3940), was quick to try to cash in on the phenomenon, with effigies of the magnificent bird springing up everywhere, and T-shirts and other souvenirs immediately available. The local café named dishes after it, and the local barber shop a hairdo.
One swallow does not a summer make, nor one sighting a confirmed return from extinction. Brinkley wanted to revive its depressed economy on the bird, and for a while, as birders and academics trooped to the place, there was a boom.
The sardonic publisher of the local paper, a welcome voice of skepticism, allowed that Brinkley might become another Roswell/Area 51 venue. It didn’t matter if the story were true, as long as it was perceived to be by enough tourists.
This film takes an open but clear-eyed view of the whole ivory-billed woodpecker circus, and makes its own case at the end simply by stating the truth as it is known. The world is a poorer place without the bird, nicknamed the “Lord God!” bird because of the common reaction to seeing it in flight. (I guess the “Holy S–t!” bird is less acceptable.) We would all love to find a small colony of the creatures, but wishing will not make it so.
If you want a lesson in the way the system works on people’s hopes, and the ability of even credentialed scientists to fool themselves, this is the documentary for you. Worth seeing.
B+