From husband David Ridenour:

On April 28, researchers, including representatives of the environmentalist group The Nature Conservancy, announced the discovery of an Ivory-Billed Woodpecker along the Cache River in Arkansas. Before the “discovery,” the bird had been believed to be extinct since 1944. It nonetheless continued to be protected under the federal Endangered Species Act.The discovery occurred at the very time that the Fish and Wildlife Service was working through a back-log of petitions for delisting species submitted by the National Wilderness Institute (NWI) back in 1997. One of the petitions called for the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker to be delisted due to extinction.