October 5, 2005
Several quotes from the Mercury News about the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker.
"The last universally accepted sighting of the woodpecker had been made in 1944. The last universally accepted drawn picture of the bird was made in 1948. Periodically, individuals surfaced who said they had seen an ivory-billed woodpecker, but they were ridiculed and all claims were disbelieved.
Speaking about the history, discovery and excitement of the bird’s rediscovery at a convention of outdoor writers in Madison, Wis., Gallagher said it crossed into "the Bigfoot realm."
Seems like people who claimed they had seen the bird were treated like Bigfoot eyewitnesses…
Gallagher, an active outdoors researcher, is both an entertaining speaker and writer. He understood that any public claim of the existence of an ivory-billed woodpecker would be attacked and dismissed so he knew he needed irrefutable proof.
The breakthrough in the field came when Arkansas outdoorsman Gene Sparling was kayaking in the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge on Feb. 11, 2004, and saw an unusual woodpecker land in a tree. Sparling put his description on a Web site where Gallagher found it. He interviewed Sparling, thought he was credible and 15 days later was in the area with Alabama friend Bobby Harrison.
The two entered swampy waters amid forested land in the shadows of 1,000-year-old cypress trees.
"It was just like `Deliverance,”’Gallagher said of the 1972 movie based on James Dickey’s novel of the same name.
Paddling in separate kayaks and canoes the next day, they were stunned when a bird shot past them.
"We both yelled `Ivory-bill!’ simultaneously and the bird veered away," Gallagher said.
The event was over quickly, but both wrote down matching observations. Gallagher returned to Cornell trying to sell his boss on the notion that "he had seen Sasquatch." He said he felt like Lewis & Clark’s Corps of Discovery finding an unknown species.
Co-founder of Cryptomundo in 2005.
I have appeared in or contributed to the following TV programs, documentaries and films:
OLN's Mysterious Encounters: "Caddo Critter", Southern Fried Bigfoot, Travel Channel's Weird Travels: "Bigfoot", History Channel's MonsterQuest: "Swamp Stalker", The Wild Man of the Navidad, Destination America's Monsters and Mysteries in America: Texas Terror - Lake Worth Monster, Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot: Return to Boggy Creek and Beast of the Bayou.
Filed under Bigfoot, Bigfoot Report, Cryptozoology, Evidence, Extinct, Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, Sasquatch