May 13, 2005

Rare Woodpecker Sighting Confirmed

By LILA GUTERMAN

The ivory-billed woodpecker, a majestic bird long thought to be extinct and long pursued by ornithologists, has been sighted in eastern Arkansas, scientists announced last month.

Fifteen sightings, each of a single bird and seven of which are described in a peer-reviewed report published online by the journal Science, have taken place since February 2004. They are the first confirmed sightings in the United States since a female was spotted in Louisiana in 1944.

Gale Norton, the

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