Jerome A. Jackson

IVORY-BILLED WOODPECKER (CAMPEPHILUS PRINCIPALIS): HOPE, AND THE INTERFACES OF SCIENCE, CONSERVATION, AND POLITICS

I 1986, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service appointed an Advisory Commi ee to evaluate the status of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker (Campephilus principalis), a species that had been on U.S. endangered species lists since their inception. James Tanner, who was the foremost authority on the species, Lester Short, a leading authority on woodpeckers of the world, and I served on the commi ee. Other members included government biologists and long-time seekers of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers. We were told that we were being called an “Advisory Commi ee” because we could not be called a “Recovery Team,” given that there were no birds to recover and, as such, there could be no Recovery Plan. At our fi rst meeting, held in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, we learned that our intended function was to serve as a sanctioning body to “offi cially” declare the Ivory-billed Woodpecker extinct. We reviewed published and unpublished reports of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers that had accumulated since the 1940s and agreed that the evidence for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker’s continued existence was slim, though there had been a continuing stream of anecdotal reports of the species from across the Southeast. Both Tanner and Short were prepared to declare the species extinct, given that more than 50 years had passed without confi rmation of its existence. But there had not been a range-wide systematic survey of potential Ivory-billed Woodpecker habitats since Tanner’s eff orts in the 1930s. Thus, it was unreasonable, I argued, to declare the species extinct without making a serious eff ort to fi nd it. In part as a response to the Advisory Commi ee meeting, Michael Harwood (1986) wrote an article in Audubon, bemoaning the lack of a ention given to the Ivory-billed Woodpecker and lambasting the “ornithological establishment” for doing nothing in response to the fl ow of anecdotal reports. In the article, titled “You Can’t Protect What Isn’t There,” Harwood (1986:118) noted that “the ghostly Ivory-bill, lacking offi cial sanction, might just as well have been extinct all these years...listing has led to virtually nothing in the way of federal rescue activity.” The Ivory-billed Woodpecker Advisory Commi ee concurred that we owed it to the species to make one last search. As the dissenter, and as one doing research on woodpeckers in the Southeast, the searching fell to me. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service provided a grant of

In Memoriam: Norman Fredrick Sloan, 1934-1989

60,000, and I used a sabbatical to conduct the search. Because of limited funding, I focused Whitaker Center, Florida Gulf Coast University, 10501 FGCU Boulevard South, Fort Myers, Florida 33965, USA JEROME A. JACKSON1 IVORY-BILLED WOODPECKER (CAMPEPHILUS PRINCIPALIS): HOPE, AND THE INTERFACES OF SCIENCE, CONSERVATION, AND POLITICS The Auk 123(1):1–15, 2006

IN MEMORIAM: LAWRENCE KILHAM, 1910–2000

Norman Fredrick Sloan was born on 11 November 1934 at Hillsdale, Michigan. On 14 February 1986, Norm suffered a massive stroke which left him totally incapacitated. He died 30 August 1989. Following an undergraduate degree in Forestry from Michigan Technological University in 1957, Norm worked for the Bureau of Land Management in Oregon, and then for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Minnesota. He earned M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in entomology and wildlife management from the University of Wisconsin, then joined the faculty at Michigan Tech, where he taught until 1986. His fields of teaching and research included wildlife management, recreation, entomology, ornithology, plant propagation, and biological control systems. Norm was instrumental in beginning the graduate program in forestry at Michigan Tech and served as major professor for numerous students, several of whom worked with birds. He often brought students to meetings with him, and it was obvious that they held Norm in high esteem. Much of Norms research focussed on White Pelicans, but he was an opportunist and innovator, publishing several papers and notes describing field techniques and aspects of avian behavioral ecology. Norm was one of those rare professionals who fostered strong ties with amateur ornithologists, especially through his long association with the Inland Bird Banding Association. He edited Inland Bird Banding News (1971-1978), served as IBBAs editor for North American Bird Bander (1984-1986), and served on IBBAs Board of Directors. In 1984 he became an Elective Member of the AOU. Norm was a skilled taxidermist, horticulturist, and wildlife rehabilitator. He was reknowned among his colleagues for his campfire cookery. Norm is survived by his wife Martha, daughter Elizabeth, and son Graham. The Norman F. Sloan Fund has been set up at Michigan Technological University to reward outstanding students in the School of Forestry and Wood Products.

The Role of Insectivorous Birds in Forest Ecosystems

Lawrence Kilham died at his home in Lyme, New Hampshire, on 21 September 2000. Born 10 August 1910 in Brookline, Massachusetts, Lawrence grew up in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. He graduated from Harvard University with a bachelors degree in history and literature in 1932, earned a masters degree in biology from Harvard in 1935, and an M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1940. While serving as an intern in Cleveland, Ohio, he met his wife, Jane, a fellow intern. Both went to England early in World War II, and Lawrence served in field hospitals under General George Patton. After leaving the Army in 1945, Lawrence returned to graduate school doing virology research and teaching epidemiology. From 1949 to 1960, he worked as a research virologist. He joined the faculty at Dartmouth Medical School in 1961, where he remained until he retired in 1978. Lawrence Kilham was widely recognized for his research with viruses and infectious diseases, publishing nearly 150 articles and discovering a new group of viruses with single-stranded DNA. At first his interest in birds was recreational, stemming from a lifelong quest for solitude and nature that led him to identify with Henry David Thoreau and to seek wild places. After his marriage, his wife Jane shared his quests and often illustrated his articles and books; to better learn from nature, they went their own ways in the field, coming back together every few hours to share their observations. By the early 1950s, Lawrence was serious about birds, joining both the AOU and the Wilson Ornithological Society in 1952. It was while doing viral research in Uganda in 1954-1955, that he developed a research interest in bird behavior. From that point on, his work with the behavior of birds and mammals, an avocation, became a passion that led to more than 90 publications in the ornithological and behavioral literature. I suspect that for him, the joy of birds relieved the pressures of teaching and laboratory work. For his ornithological contributions, he was made an Elective Member of the AOU in 1962, and a Fellow in 1974. Truly Lawrence Kilham successfully lived two outstanding careers in science! In addition to his journal articles, he published four books relating to his studies of nature: Never Enough of Nature (1977, Droll Yankees Inc., Foster, Rhode Island); On Watching Birds (1979, Chelsea Green Publishing Company, Chelsea, Vermont), reissued as A Naturalists Field Guide (1981, Stackpole Books, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania); Life History Studies of Woodpeckers of Eastern North America (1983, Publications of the Nuttall Ornithological Club, no. 20); and The American Crow and the Common Raven (1989, Texas A & M University Press, College Station, Texas). For On Watching Birds he was awarded the John Burroughs Medal for outstanding nature writing in 1988. Although he studied a great diversity of birds, Lawrence Kilham is best known for his work with woodpeckers. Indeed, it is difficult to find a major study on the behavioral ecology of woodpeckers that was not influenced by Kilhams work. Much ornithological research today is problem oriented; some remain species oriented; his work was often individual oriented! His research was not couched in systematic