Horns honking and squawking. Trapped by a traffic jam. Wishing for
wings to fly over lanes and lanes of fuming cars and red ozone haze.
There I was stuck on pollution highway, looking at the hazy orange
sunset over the tops of the man planted tree lined road and listening
to National Public Radio’s confirmation that the once declared
extinct ivory-billed woodpecker was now living in the Arkansas swamps.
I never even knew of the ivory-billed woodpecker until it flew into
my life that day from the radio but it sparked hope that we must be
doing something right in a day when so much wrong is so evident in
our environment but now over two years later I fear that hope may
have been in vain. Today we still hear the silence of the tin horn
cry louder than ever in the absence of our beloved bird songs in our
own back yards.
I never knew of the ivory-billed woodpecker until it flew into my
life that day from National Public Radio’s news but it sparked
hope that conservational efforts were making a difference, perhaps
even in my life.
At the turn of the 20th Century Native Americans valued ivory bills
by wearing them around their necks like garland. Then the New Americans
clear cut twenty million acres of southern swamp lands silencing the
ivory-billed woodpecker’s double knocking and its tin horn cry
with every hack of the ax. In the end, collectors decided to ravage
the last remaining birds for stuffed specimens in their private collections.
The ivory-billed woodpecker’s tin horn cry and its double knocking
had gone silent twenty years before I was born. The ivory-billed woodpecker
didn’t disappear suddenly. Just like the frogs and back yard
birds haven’t disappeared over night. Just like the hole in
the ozone didn’t suddenly appear one day. Just like the Amazon
forests aren’t disappearing all at once but acre by acre, tree
by tree they are being razed to the ground.
I suppose, I am like that proverbial frog sitting in the beaker of
water with the temperature slowly heating to the point of boiling
the frog when he could have just as easily jumped out of the beaker
to safety as he would do if it was suddenly heated. I couldn’t
point to a day when the frogs vanished from our yards. I can’t
point to which summer many of our back yard birds stopped serenading
our hot muggy evenings. I never thought spraying the yard with insecticides
would hurt anything other than the fleas and mosquitoes. I couldn’t
point to the exact day the summers got hotter or the rainy seasons
more rainy. I didn’t connect the dots between my hair spray
and big cars and the ozone layers. I couldn’t tell you exactly
when my skin started to burn within fifteen minutes of being on the
beach without loads of sunscreen. I couldn’t pin point the exact
year when the clear horizons were replaced with milky white haze but
is was about the same time my allergies began to escalate. Who knew
that global warming may be responsible for more destructive hurricanes
like Katrina, who demolished New Orleans several years ago And more
recently the Audubon Society announced the decline of our back yard
birds; their absence unnoticed as I watered my potted flowers on the
patio. I guess you could say that frog and I have more in common than
I’d like to admit when it comes to noticing the gradual changes
in my environment.
Well this frog is changing…this frog has reasons to drive smaller
environmental friendly vehicles. It is the same reason I have doubled
my conservation efforts after watching idly as the fast food and the
throw away generation littered our streets, polluted our rivers and
made ozone alerts an everyday occurrence. It is no longer about money;
it is about quality of life. It is because time is running out even
if one bird has managed to survive. I can see what the earth will
be like if I don’t change my ways as I was sitting behind the
steering wheel with allergies eyes staring at the milky air and hazy
windshields while listening to stories about vanishing birds.
Today, the icon of conservation’s once again falls silent among
the Arkansas swamps. Now after more than two years we have yet to
have concrete evidence other than audio recording of that double knocking
and ten horn cry. Perhaps the Ivory-bill-Woodpecker is only sounding
the alarm again. What words do you hear? I hear a tin horn cry for
the preservation of our earth. I hear the double knocking for us to
wake up and take notice of the damage we have done the planet we call
home. I hear the flutter of its large wings soaring up to the tree
tops to tell us it isn’t too late; there is still time to protect
what natural resources still with us. The way the Ivory –bill
Woodpecker cared for its young is a reminder that we too are care
takers of all our young both large and small. This icon of conversation
came to speak out in behalf of the disappearing backyard birds. Perhaps,
the Ivory-billed Woodpecker’s faint cry is not one of survival
but of warning that we too could become only a faint cry in our world
vanishing species.