As publicity about the search increases, so do calls of people who believe they have seen ivory-billed woodpeckers. Bird experts begin a 30-day search in the Pearl River Wildlife Management Area on Thursday with hopes of spotting ivory-billed woodpeckers.

The search was prompted by a sighting in 1999 by LSU student David Kulivan, who said he saw a pair in the Pearl River Wildlife Management Area while hunting turkey. [Van Remsen] interviewed Kulivan and believes the student saw a pair of ivory-bills.

[Joe Dileo] said the first birds to attack his house drilled so hard into beams that "I thought someone was knocking at the door ... . They did several hundred dollars worth of damage."Ray Reech Sr. of Big Bend in Avoyelles Parish, not far from where the Red River and the Mississippi River outflow channel form the headwaters of the Atchafalaya River, said he's seen a few huge woodpeckers that he thinks match the description of ivory-bills.