IvoryBilledWoodpecker_GoodGodBird_Blackburn_Jim_HoustonTX_10October2023_Reel4174.mp3
Jim Blackburn [00:00:00] I learned to hunt and to fish from my uncles and from my dad.
Jim Blackburn [00:00:05] My uncles would take me out with them during the summer. My dad was working down in the valley, but I was in Louisiana, and so Uncle Bun and Uncle L.E., Uncle Charles, they would all take me to all of these crazy swamp places because my grandfather Blackburn had been a foreman with the timber company that cut the cypress trees from the swamps back when that was first being harvested.
Jim Blackburn [00:00:30] And my daddy and his brothers spent a lot of time down in those bottom lands and they knew it like the back of their hand. So I really had a first-class nature education in these bottom lands.
Jim Blackburn [00:00:43] And I can remember, particularly my Uncle Charles, and you know, he stuttered a bit. And, you know, he said, "You know, you know, Jim, there's a good, good, good God bird".
Speaker [00:00:56] And I said, "What?"
Speaker [00:00:57] And he said, "You know, like, good God, look at that woodpecker!"
Jim Blackburn [00:01:01] And I think that he was describing the ivory-billed. It would have still been around in the thirties when they were down in those woods.
Jim Blackburn [00:01:09] And, it really struck me, and of course they were in East Texas. But this is a species that, at least as far as we know, has disappeared from the Earth.
Jim Blackburn [00:01:19] And the loss of a species is, it's a big deal. You know, it is the end of a strain of DNA. It is the end of an adaptation. It is the end of something that nature created and that, I guess, was formed by evolution.
Jim Blackburn [00:01:43] And it just strikes me. I have litigated to protect endangered species and it's a bit like having a death penalty case in criminal law, because you're really fighting to preserve a species, the habitat that species relies upon. And I mean, it's a very serious undertaking.
Jim Blackburn [00:02:06] The Endangered Species Act is a very powerful act, but for good reason, because the threat is a very powerful threat.
Jim Blackburn [00:02:18] So, I've been very careful about litigating under the Endangered Species Act because it is so strong.
Jim Blackburn [00:02:25] And there's always a fear in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals out of New Orleans, which is where all of our Texas cases would be appealed to. They're the worst environmental circuit in the United States. So, there's a good chance that they could really strip the Endangered Species Act of its strength if we aren't careful. So there's always a bit of nervousness about one of those cases.
Jim Blackburn [00:02:50] But now in the case of the ivory-billed woodpecker, we never got a chance to litigate to protect it. And I think that is what this poem is really about, is really lamenting the fact that this is a species that's gone, it's been lost.
Jim Blackburn [00:03:05] And yeah, that, that's, that's, that's a bad thing for us. It's a bad thing for me as a person who loves birds. That beautiful ivory bill on a huge woodpecker: something I'll never see.
Jim Blackburn [00:03:25] The Ivory-billed Woodpecker.
Jim Blackburn [00:03:28] I've heard the story about my uncles
Jim Blackburn [00:03:30] When they were boys -
Jim Blackburn [00:03:32] A story about a bird they saw
Jim Blackburn [00:03:34] Down in the Cocodrie Swamp -
Jim Blackburn [00:03:36] A bird that my Uncle Charles called
Jim Blackburn [00:03:38] The "Good God Woodpecker", as in
Jim Blackburn [00:03:40] "Good God. Look at that Woodpecker."
Jim Blackburn [00:03:43] It happened during the '30s
Jim Blackburn [00:03:44] And I always wondered if they were talking
Jim Blackburn [00:03:46] About the Ivory-Billed -
Jim Blackburn [00:03:49] A magnificent bird that has been.
Jim Blackburn [00:03:49] Denied to me,
Jim Blackburn [00:03:51] A bird that I may never see,
Jim Blackburn [00:03:53] A bird that has apparently
Jim Blackburn [00:03:55] Ceased to be.
Jim Blackburn [00:03:56] It's just not here anymore.
Jim Blackburn [00:03:58] It isn't simply that one specimen died,
Jim Blackburn [00:04:01] But instead it's that an entire species.
Jim Blackburn [00:04:03] Has left the Earth.
Jim Blackburn [00:04:05] Left us with less,.
Jim Blackburn [00:04:07] Left me wishing for the Good God.
Jim Blackburn [00:04:09] For whom it was named,
Jim Blackburn [00:04:10] The same God with whom
Jim Blackburn [00:04:12] I am angry
Jim Blackburn [00:04:13] For letting us humans be so blind,
Jim Blackburn [00:04:16] For letting us destroy other living things
Jim Blackburn [00:04:18] Without thought and without care.
Jim Blackburn [00:04:20] AAGGHHHHHHH.
Jim Blackburn [00:04:23] Good God I miss that woodpecker.