In Search of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker » (Reprint)

Jerome A. Jackson is recognized as the world's expert on the ivory-billed woodpecker. The winner of the 2004 Chandler Robbins Education and Conservation Award from the American Birding Association, Jackson is the Whitaker Eminent Scholar in Science at Florida Gulf Coast University. He lives in Naples, Florida.

The ivory-billed woodpecker is an American icon, featured in Audubon's art, conservation campaigns, and product ads. Jackson (Florida Gulf Coast U.), an authority on the now extinct species, offers an accessible synthesis of its natural history, searches— including his own—to sight the birders' Holy Grail, and a state- by-state summary of its former distribution. Color illustrations include the ivory-bill in habitats in Louisiana and Cuba. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Publishers Weekly

With its large bill and impressive appearance, the ivory-billed woodpecker, long thought to be extinct, is an ornithologist's holy grail. Organizations have sponsored searches for it; nature Web sites ask visitors to e-mail in their ivory-billed reports; and flocks of hopeful birders descend upon the American South every year hoping to find one. Jackson is a leading scholar and dedicated knight of this impressive bird, having maintained an obsession with it for 30 years. He takes readers on his exhaustive search through history books and records and then on his tireless travels in southeastern America and Cuba looking for the ivory-billed. In a time of multitasking and overwhelming choices, Jackson's life, with its single-minded pursuit, is enviable, and the book's allure derives in part from Jackson's zeal and focus. He provides insight into the interdependence of flora and fauna of the ivory-billed woodpecker's habitat; extensive background on previous ornithologists' work; the woodpecker's history (going back to its possible evolution two million years ago); and the bird's iconography in preservation and even advertising (in Travelers Insurance Company ads and elsewhere). With diligence and exacting scholarship, Jackson makes an important contribution to our understanding of this elusive bird and the impact of human activities on its environment. 30 halftones. (Sept.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.