“Search for the Rare Ivorybill”

Don Eckleberry, author of “Search for the Rare Ivorybill” explains in this passage the struggles, and feats, of the rare Ivorybilled Woodpecker. I enjoyed this article because there’s lots of information in here that I didn’t know about the bird, like the fact that Eckleberry had found a dead Ivorybill and then later, after exploration, 6 more were still alive! A bird that hadn’t been seen in years was found again and more research was conducted. The amount of effort trying to keep these final birds alive was outstanding. I was also pleased to see that even President FDR got in on the action and helped out protecting these birds from lumberjacks. This makes me happy because someone higher up than just an environmentalist cared about saving a bird from extinction. I was also confused at the sentence that read “…a newspaper story had put an estimated value of one thousand dollars on an ivorybill skin.” This sentence is directly after the effort for protection was placed; was the one thousand dollars for finding a live bird and telling someone about it, or was the money for the death of the bird for its literal skin? Nevertheless, there was a dramatic amount of effort put in to save this bird from extinction, too bad it couldn’t last forever.