ILLUSTRATED FLORA OF EAST TEXAS - Brit - Botanical Research ...

178 INTRODUCTION/PRESETTLEMENT AND EARLY SETTLEMENT CONDITIONS OF BIG THICKET
The roosts of Passenger Pigeons often contained millions of birds and their evening arrival in vast
converging flocks presented an almost indescribable spectacle. The combined weight of the enormous
numbers of birds often broke even the stoutest branches leaving trees stripped of limbs and
foliage as if a cyclone had passed (Terrell 1948). Smaller trees and saplings were sometimes crushed
to the ground and broken off at the roots (Askew 1939). Guano, which accumulated to depths of a
foot or more at roosts such as the one on Wolf Creek north of Palestine [north of the Big Thicket]
(Anon. 1876b [Anonymous 1876]), completed the devastation by killing all ground level vegetation.
This once almost unbelievably numerous species was hunted extensively in Texas and elsewhere
(often with nets or sticks while they were roosting), and populations were rapidly
reduced. Such widespread overexploitation, coupled with extensive destruction of their forest
habitat, resulted in the species’ rapid extinction, with 1900 being the last record of one taken
in Texas (Oberholser 1974).
The ivory-billed woodpecker (Fig. 98), one of the world’s largest woodpecker species
(19–20 inches (48–51 cm) long), was also present in the Big Thicket (Oberholser 1974;
Shackelford 1998). Though not seen in Texas for decades and long thought to be extinct, this
species was recently rediscovered in Arkansas (Fitzpatrick et al. 2005). According to Bailey
(1905, in Oberholser 1974), this species was “well known to all the residents throughout the
Big Thicket, and was reported as fairly common at every place we inquired. Even the boys
could imitate its harsh notes. Still the only birds we saw were between Tarkington Prairie and
the Trinity River [Liberty County], where, I saw six in one day—November 26, 1904.” This
dramatically crested, raven-sized, black, white, and red species, which inhabited densely
wooded deciduous bottomlands and swamps bordering rivers, was extremely specialized. It
was “…dependent, at least in the breeding season, on larvae of wood boring beetles…that live
between bark and sapwood of large, recently dead limbs and trunks. Only trees dead from one
to four years contain enough larvae to sustain Ivorybill populations” (Oberholser 1974).
Therefore, huge forests were necessary for its survival—with the almost total destruction of
these old growth forests by logging, the extinction of this species was probably inevitable. The
last specimens taken in Texas were from Liberty County in 1904, with sightings in the Big
Thicket by knowledgeable biologists (e.g., Manuel Armand Yramategui, Lance Rosier,
Geraldine Watson) until the late 1960s and even 1970s (Oberholser 1974; Peacock 1994;
Geraldine Watson, pers. comm.).
Another extinct species, the Carolina parakeet (Fig. 99), was widely known from East
Texas (Greenway 1958; Forshaw 1977; Goodwin 1983), including the Big Thicket (e.g.,
Jasper and Jefferson counties—Oberholser 1974). This visually striking species was bright
green in color with a yellow head shading to orange on the forehead and near the eye. These
parakeets had a varied diet, but after the advent of agriculture they fed extensively on corn
and cultivated fruits. As a result, they were a prime target of farmers (Oberholser 1974).
Unfortunately, a quirk of their behavior made hunting them quite easy—“… members of a
flock habitually hovered over a felled companion until all were gunned down” (Oberholser
1974). The last report of a Carolina parakeet killed in Texas was from Bowie County in 1897.
Another Big Thicket bird, the red-cockaded woodpecker, is not locally extinct but has
suffered a dramatic decline. This federally endangered species originally occurred broadly in
the pine forests of the eastern one-fourth of Texas. Unfortunately, it has quite specialized
habitat requirements and needs old growth pine forest for its survival (Oberholser 1974;
Rudolph & Conner 1991). For its nesting or roosting hole this small, cooperatively breeding
woodpecker “…requires large, living pines—usually eighty years old or more—with
centers rotted by red-heart fungus disease” (Oberholser 1974). “The bird pecks away the
bark around the hole’s entrance so that glistening pine pitch slowly drips like wax from a
guttering candle”—perhaps as an anti-predator (e.g., snake) mechanism (Oberholser 1974).
In addition, the trunks and upper limbs of large pines are its preferred foraging sites