Without Proof, an Ivory-Billed Boom Goes Bust It has been almost three years since a research team, led by Cornell University and the Nature Conservancy, announced the rediscovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker in the Big Woods — a 550,000-acre tract of bottomland hardwood forest. Researchers have also reported spotting an ivory-billed woodpecker in a northwest Florida swamp. The large, yellow-eyed bird had not been conclusively seen in the United States since around the end of World War II, and some scientists have questioned whether the more recent reports of sightings are legitimate. Nevertheless, the federal Fish and Wildlife Service has recommended spending $27 million on recovery efforts for the woodpecker. The patch of Arkansas bayou where the researchers said they spotted the bird is in the heart of Monroe County. Once an agricultural and manufacturing center, the county is now one of the poorest places in Arkansas. For its roughly 10,000 residents, the reported rediscovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker fired hopes of an economic turnaround not seen since the soybean boom of the 1970s. After the sighting was announced, local economies seemed to benefit for a while as scientists, bird-watchers and news media outlets from around the world flocked to Brinkley and to the other communities in the patchwork quilt of fragmented forest and farmland that surrounds the Big Woods. “People came from everywhere,” said Gene DePriest, who still has an ivory-billed cheeseburger, salad and dessert on the menu of his barbecue restaurant in Brinkley. “I sold over $20,000 worth of T-shirts in six months.” Lately, though, the ivory-billed boom has pretty much been a bust, especially since researchers and bird-watchers have, so far, failed to take a definitive picture of the woodpecker. A blurry video clip released when the rediscovery was announced failed to convince many ornithologists of the animal’s existence. There have since been plenty of purported sightings, but still no picture....