This piece came about in 2021 after the US Fish and Wildlife Service decided to declare the Ivory-Bill extinct. Due to public outcry, an extension of this decision was extended into 2023. I picked up a couple of books about the search for evidence. One was from Geoffrey Hill, a biology professor from Auburn University. It detailed an extensive search through the lower Choctawhatchee River along the border of Walton and Washington County in Florida. I’m from that area of Northwest Florida and it wouldn’t surprise me to find a small breeding population there or along the Apalachicola River in Gulf County. The Apalach has more wild area and quite a bit of it is inaccessible.
I use old maps/topographic maps to explore not only place, but time; expose what we are losing with unmanaged development and climate change. In June 2016, I went to my 30th High School reunion in Defuniak Springs, Florida. It’s the first time I’ve been able to spend any appreciable time since 1992 and it was good to be home. The first night of the reunion we had a bonfire on the beach. Driving to it (Defuniak is 40 miles from the Gulf of Mexico…) I noticed all the development that had taken place; some good, some bad. There was a public beach access spot near the bonfire location between condominiums to the left and right. In the 1970’s as a little kid, I remember going with my parents to see my grandparents. We’d drive along Highway 98 and from the point we left Destin to nearly Panama City we could travel miles and miles through coast grasslands, scrubby flatwoods and pine forest. Now it is nearly all concrete and metal, car horns and mini-marts.
Imagine this area in 1850 when it was mostly virgin timber and oak scrubland. You’re here alone. The sky is pristine with no contrails crisscrossing. The air is surprisingly fresh as if there was just a rain. You’re almost unsettled by the quiet. There’s no modern background noise – no cars, no boat motors just the breeze whispering thru the pines. The Choctawhatchee burbles along the bank where you stand. Around the bend you hear the splash from a breaching bass. Then you hear it off to the Northwest, it’s the double-knock and kent call of an Ivory-Bill. It’s answered answered quickly by another to your south. This is when the Lord God Bird ruled the forest. Perhaps we should visit a Carolina Parakeet next?
