Scientists converge on SC to confirm sightings

Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, black GOP lawmaker allegedly spotted in Palmetto State

B&P News – N. Charleston

Scientists from around the country are traveling to South Carolina this weekend to investigate the appearance of an entity long thought to be extinct, and also to look for a bird. The experts are in the Palmetto State hoping to confirm alleged sightings of a black Republican elected to the State House, and the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker in the Lowcountry.

“This is really amazing to me,” said ornithologist Cooper Hawkins of Minnesota. “Against all odds, there are rumors of a black Republican lawmaker in South Carolina.”

Scientists are also excited about the Ivory Bill.

“Sure, I guess that’s neat,” said Hawkins. “But come on, Republican?”

There have been no confirmed cases of black Republican election in the South Carolina State House since Reconstruction, and the last established sighting of an Ivory-Billed Woodpecker was also decades ago.

Still, authorities have found the initial reports credible enough to warrant a full-scale investigation, even if previously alleged South Carolina sightings have been forgeries.

In 1971, then-legislator Alex Sanders claimed to have heard the distinctive double rap of the Ivory Bill in the Santee Swamp. The claim is now widely believed to have been a hoax aimed at conserving swampland.

Ten years later, freshman state senator Glenn McConnell of Charleston claimed to be the first black Republican lawmaker since Reconstruction, but researchers later ascertained that he was in fact very, very white.