IvorybilledWoodpecker_LoggingandDamming_Shackelford_Cliff_NacodochesTX_29July2021_Reel4063.mp3

Cliff Shackelford [00:00:00] This is a bird that occurred in east Texas, in the east Texas timberland area, where you've got big trees - pines and hardwoods.

Cliff Shackelford [00:00:08] And so when settlers came across from the east, going west, and hit east Texas and, you know, starting around the 1880s, it got really strong - cutting, logging and removing the big trees.

Cliff Shackelford [00:00:23] That, that was that was the first nail, and the primary nail, in the coffin for the ivory-bill throughout its range was, was the loss of big trees - and quickly, the loss of dead trees.

Cliff Shackelford [00:00:37] They couldn't, you know, recover. Big trees don't grow in less than a hundred years, of some of these size, with, with the heart rot that allows the bird to create cavities and so forth. So it's not something that can be replaced overnight with new growth trees.

Cliff Shackelford [00:00:53] So that, that was really the major nail in the coffin for the ivory-bill was the loss of big trees. A big woodpecker needs big trees.

Cliff Shackelford [00:01:02] And so most of our uplands got logged first. This is all before mechanical means of cutting trees down. So everything was cut by hand. So it was a lot easier to be up in the pines and upland pine trees, in the pine forests, to cut by hand.

Cliff Shackelford [00:01:16] And, and so the bottomlands were, were kind of last. And that's where any surviving ivory-bills would have retreated or remained would be in the swamps, in the backwater areas, where there are big trees down in the river bottoms.

Cliff Shackelford [00:01:32] And, you know, here come reservoir construction, starting heavily in the '50s and '60s. And that certainly didn't help because some of the best ivory-bill habitat would be underneath Toledo Bend Reservoir, underneath Sam Rayburn Reservoir, underneath Lake Livingston and so forth. And so I think that was another nail in the coffin for the ivory-billed.

Cliff Shackelford [00:01:56] So habitat loss, by far, is the number one reason we lost that bird throughout the southeast U.S., including Texas.