Texas Fauna Project

Ivory-billed Woodpecker

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Cliff Shackelford, the Texas Parks and Wildlife state ornithologist for many years, is based in Nacogdoches. He has long worked on educating the public, and protecting and restoring nongame birds. He has closely researched the ivory-billed woodpecker in the state, compiling a history of the bird in the state. Here he recalls how one respected scientist, John Dennis, made a 1967 audio tape of what he believed to be an ivory-billed in Texas, but others were never able to confirm the record of this elusive, likely extinct, bird.