USA – 2010 – 85 MIN – COLOUR - FEATURE - IN ENGLISH
A FILM BY SCOTT CROCKER
NON-THEATRICAL: AVAILABLE FOR TV, VOD & FILM FESTIVALS ONLY
Set in a murky swamp overrun with birders, scientists, and reporters, GHOST BIRD explores the limits of certainty, the seductive power of hope, and how one phantom woodpecker changed a sleepy Southern town forever.
Extinction means that a species has ceased to exist forever. The term is meant to be definitive and final. But what happens if an extinct species isn't really dead? In 2005, scientists announced that the Ivory-billed woodpecker, a species thought to be extinct for 60 years, had been found in the swamps of Eastern Arkansas. The story was celebrated around the world as the rediscovery of a lifetime. It prompted the largest recovery effort ever undertaken for a lost species. Millions of dollars poured in from the government as ornithologists and birders flooded the area. Along the way, the town of Brinkley, Arkansas — itself on the brink of extinction - was transformed by the hope, commerce and controversy surrounding the bird. But continued credible sightings by expert birders were coupled with a mysterious absence of evidence. And five years later, the Ivory-bill remains as elusive as ever. GHOST BIRD brings the Ivory-bill's blurry rediscovery into focus revealing our uneasy relationship with nature and the increasing uncertainty of our place within it.