247 The long flight back 



up his work with the Foundation for Scientific Research in Suri- 

 nam and the Netherlands Antilles, Dr. Jon Westermann pub- 

 lished challenging (and distressing) reports on the destruction of 

 the flora and fauna of the Caribbean area. He listed 1 5 mammals 

 already extinct in that region and some 20 mammal forms now 

 threatened with extinction. In addition, he listed 11 species of 

 birds and 10 subspecies already extinct, and pointed out that in 

 the Caribbean area "within the past 100 years some 14 forms 

 have disappeared, a number surpassing that of entire continental 

 America. Some 15 species are now particularly threatened with 

 extermination, while another 20 or 25 forms are considered to be 

 so reduced in numbers that their survival in the long run is doubt- 

 ful." Of land reptiles and amphibians, 20 species and 5 subspecies 

 are already gone. 



In North America we are now faced with enough problems in 

 this field to keep us occupied for some time to come. What has 

 happened to those critical species which have been the subjects 

 of our Audubon Research Program? The ivory-billed woodpecker 

 has disappeared from both the Singer Tract in Louisiana and 

 the Santee River swamps in South Carolina. The valuable timber 

 of the Singer was cut and removed, in spite of earnest efforts by 

 conservationists and government to find a compromise solution 

 that would leave some of it as a wilderness preserve. The Santee 

 swamp was flooded by the construction of a dam in order to pro- 

 vide electric power for expanding industrial and human needs in 

 that region. A few ivory-bills may survive in parts of northern 

 Florida but their presence there has not been verified, and there 

 now appears to be no possibility of a practicable program for their 

 preservation. In this case the last-ditch fight was evidently made 

 and lost in Louisiana and South Carolina prior to World War II. 

 It was made too late! 



The case of the California condor is more encouraging. Carl 

 Koford studied these great birds and their "conditions of life" 

 from March, 1939 to June, 1941, completing the field work in 

 1946. In his excellent monograph (1953) he lists wanton shooting, 

 collecting, the use of poison, trapping, accidents, fires, construction 

 of roads and trails, oil development, and photographers as the 



