Ghost Bird – The Ivory-billed Woodpecker: Hopes, Dreams, and Reality

Science is a human endeavor, replete with all the trappings and promise of science as well as all the foibles of humans. Ghost Bird, an 85-minute documentary film [1] about the possible rediscovery of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker (Campephilus principalis) in eastern Arkansas in 2004, bares the very fabric of science along with the diversity of public perceptions that color this fabric with hues of economic, political, and conservation hopes, dreams, and realities. This is a story about people perhaps even more than it is about the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. It is very much about the interfaces and interactions of science, conservation, culture, politics, and the news media. I acknowledge up-front that I am interviewed in the film, served on the Ivory-billed Woodpecker Recovery Team of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and was among the first to challenge the potential rediscovery of this iconic bird. I have been a lifelong student of woodpeckers and, in 2004, prior to knowledge of the rediscovery efforts, published a book detailing the history, behavioral ecology, and my own searches for the species [2]. One might say these facts introduce the potential for bias, but they also give me a unique perspective on the actual events as they unfolded, the film’s faithfulness to the events, and the potential impacts of the film on science and the public perception of science. At the scientific heart of the film is the claim by John Fitzpatrick and his colleagues of ‘‘confirmation’’ of the existence of the Ivory-bill in eastern Arkansas [3], and skepticism of that claim by others (e.g., [4,5]). The claim was initially taken seriously because of several levels of ‘‘authority’’ that were evident: the credentials of the senior author, the large number of authors involved, the reputation of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, the stature of the US Secretary of Interior (who announced the discovery), and the stature of the journal Science, in which the evidence was published. Crocker documents the ‘‘rediscovery’’ efforts, announcement, and claims through effective use of news video, since the Cornell Lab refused to allow their employees to be interviewed. Interviews with me, Richard Prum, and David Sibley highlight the counterclaim and interactions among the scientists, demonstrating the process of science as the search for firmer evidence proceeded without success. Prum, Sibley, and I were interviewed separately and each of us was unaware of what the others had said. Crocker edited these interviews, blending them to show the consensus among the skeptics and the details of arguments made. While Ghost Bird presents the story of a manuscript by the skeptics that Fitzpatrick convinced the authors to withdraw (from PLoS Biology), only two of the four authors of the manuscript are mentioned in the film (Prum and Jackson); the other authors were Mark Robbins and Brett Benz from the University of Kansas. We had all examined the Science article by Fitzpatrick and his colleagues, and they provided us a copy of the Luneau video— the single most important bit of data on which they based their paper. Based on the published paper and our analysis of the Luneau video, we concluded that the data were not strong enough to support the conclusion that the presence of Ivorybilled Woodpeckers in Arkansas had been confirmed. The seeds for Ghost Bird dropped from the lush tangle of news stories on April 28, 2005, when the announcement was made by US Secretary of the Interior, Gale Norton, and Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology Director, John Fitzpatrick, that rediscovery of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker had been confirmed in eastern Arkansas along the Cache River just north of Brinkley, a town with fewer than 4,000 people. It was wonderful, positive news amidst a jungle of thorny negative stories in the preceding days and weeks. The news went global overnight and found fertile ground in the mind of Producer/ Director Scott Crocker. Within a month, Crocker had contacted me, as well as others, as he began pursuing the story of this rediscovery. His search paralleled searches for the bird, taking him into the swamps, but also into the community of Brinkley, great museums and universities of North America, and deep into the history and lore of the Ivory-bill and the habitat it depended on. Crocker began the film with no agenda other than documenting the rediscovery, Scott Crocker (2009) Ghost Bird. Small Change Productions. www.ghostbirdmovie.com. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1000459.g001