Scientists and researchers with the latest technology are presently probing the darkest recesses of South Louisiana’s swamps for the Loch Ness Monster. Wait, no, that’s not right. Researchers and scientist will be searching the impenetrable swamps of South Louisiana for Bigfoot. No, no, no, that’s not it either. Oh yeah, experts are going into the Louisiana swamp in St. Tammany Parish, up I-59 about half an hour north of N’Walins, to search for ivory-billed woodpeckers.

According to a website set up by Zeiss optics (www.zeiss.com), an international search team has been assembled to scour the Pearl River Wildlife Management Area for documentation of this avian “loup-garou,” officially declared extinct back in the mid-’80s. These experts are Richard L. Knight, experienced birder from Tennessee; Martjan Lammertink of the Netherlands who has searched for ivory-bills and imperial woodpeckers in Cuba and Mexico; David Luneau, an electronics expert from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock; Peter McBride, a habitat biologist and Alan Wormington, of Ontario, Canada, who has served on the American Birding Association Checklist Committee and the editorial board of North American Birds.

Of course a search team is only as good as its support team, or “search planning team.” This group includes representatives from Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries, Natural Heritage Program, faculty from Louisiana State University’s (Go Tigers!) School of Forestry and Museum of Natural Sciences, the Louisiana Nature Conservancy, Dr. John Fitzpatrick, director of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology and Dr. Jerome A. Jackson, who according to the website is “the world’s leading authority on the history and biology of the ivory-billed woodpecker.” This planning team is led by Dr. Van Remsen, ornithologist at LSU.

This search is predicated upon a 1999 sighting by David Kullivan, who was then a forestry student and now is a graduate student in wildlife at LSU. According to Kullivan, he was turkey hunting in Honey Island Swamp — part of the Pearl River WMA — on April Fool’s Day 1999 when not one but two (male and female) ivory-billed woodpeckers landed in a tree about 30 yards from him. He said they spent a few minutes there and then flew to another tree 10 yards from him and stayed long enough for him to get, as he told a reporter from the Mobile (Ala.) Register, a long, close-up view.

Now the LSU forestry student/hunter is no stranger to the flora and fauna of Louisiana’s swamps. He even noted the tree species (water oak) the birds were in and was familiar with the large, not-extinct pileated woodpecker. In fact, as fortune would have it, Kullivan had even studied about the ivory-billed and its fate in one of his wildlife biology classes. So when the woodpeckers came within 10 yards and gave him a long look, he knew they were ivory-bills. In fact, he was so sure that when they flew away after spending minutes within 10 yards of him, he decided to follow them and get photos with the camera he had in his bag the entire time, just in case he killed a turkey. Unfortunately, although he could hear the woodpeckers in front of him, he could never get another look.

Of course it’s easy to see how a woodpecker could disappear into the swamp, even two woodpeckers; even two black and white woodpeckers; even two noisy black and white woodpeckers, the male with a red crest and both with ivory colored bills, and both 20 inches tall with a three-foot wingspread. That’s the size of a broad-winged hawk. It’s especially easy to see how these woodpeckers might disappear on April Fool’s Day.

As you might have guessed, I’m a bit of a skeptic. The last definite record of an ivory-bill in Louisiana was in the early 1940s in the Singer Tract, along the Tensas River in northeastern Louisiana. In fact, that is the last definite record of the bird in the U.S. There are some creditable sightings in Florida in the 1950s and as late as the 1980s in Cuba.

This giant swamp denizen originally roamed the old-growth swamps of the southeast to as far north as the Ohio River. It required large areas of old-growth in order to survive. When logging eliminated the habitat, the ivory-bill was eliminated.

Kullivan got some support for his story from faculty at LSU, and searchers were in the area within a couple of weeks. Amazingly, no ivory-bills were recorded. Some thought they may have heard something, but all the noise from I-59 made it hard to tell.

Pearl River WMA is a large area of swamp (35,000 acres) and it borders the 37,000-acre Bogue Chitto National Wildlife Refuge. But neither of these areas is pristine. Both have been heavily clear-cut in the past and are still selectively logged. They are alive with fishermen, hunters and birders throughout the year.

Rumors of ivory-bills surface frequently in Louisiana. I heard them regularly as a wildlife student at Louisiana Tech in the 1970s. In fact, I have even had calls from residents of WNC who have ivory-bills in their yards. When I suggest they get photos and give me a call back, I never hear from them again. I guess they’re not as photogenic as Nessie and Saskwatch.

I will pull out my “gris-gris” and voodoo dolls and give you a “reading” of the results of this search: Officially results will be inconclusive. Some researchers will report “not a chance.” Some will have heard something that might, could have possibly been an ivory-bill. Some will have seen birds flying through the swamp at a distance that sure looked like large woodpeckers. Those who want to believe in ivory-bills will point to the study and say “they couldn’t prove they don’t exist.” Others will say it was just another futile search. The Louisiana Ornithological Society will keep selling “do you believe” ivory-bill T-shirts. Birders will flock to New Orleans to peer into the swamp and coincidentally drop a buck or two on Bourbon Street, where they will indeed see some strange birds, and Zeiss optic deals and specials on birding paraphernalia will be flashing across the computer screens of hundreds of thousands of rabid birders for, at least, the next 60 days or so.

Is this a great country or what?

(Don Hendershot can be reached at don@smokymountainnews.com)