Signal from the Wild

According to ornithologists, the distinctive yap-yap-yap call and drumming of the large (19 in.) ivory-billed woodpecker have not been heard in significant numbers in the U.S. since the late 1930s, when all but a few of the birds were wiped out by loggers who cut down rotten, grub-filled swamp timber on which the woodpeckers fed. Now an official of the National Audubon Society named Robert Manns claims that he has heard one woodpecker's cries in the desolate Santee Swamp, near Columbia, S.C. The South Carolina Public Service Authority has heard Manns. The authority, which controls Santee Swamp timbering projects, has agreed to suspend timbering in the area until a year-long study determines, among other things, whether there really is an ivory-billed woodpecker behind that call.

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