Texas Fauna Project

Ivory-billed Woodpecker

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Working out of an office in Nacogdoches, Cliff Shackelford served as the state ornithologist for Texas Parks and Wildlife, focusing on protection of nongame birds. He is an active voice for conservation on TV, radio and social media, and has a particular interest in the history of the ivory-billed woodpecker in the state. Here he talks about how naturalists' competitive specimen-collecting ironically contributed to the likely extinction of the bird.