Clad in thigh-high snake protector chaps and muddy boots, the National Aviary’s Steven Latta has mucked around in a Louisiana river swamp from October to April for the last five years.
Latta and other researchers tramp through water, mud and dry ground for two hours most days to reach the “hot zone,” an unnamed bottomland that they believe is the stomping ground of — depending on who you ask — the elusive or extinct ivory-billed woodpecker.
Why does Latta, the National Aviary’s director of conservation and field research, do it?
