So you think the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker is extinct. Well, think again.
It seems that the same scientists who claim to have discovered one of the rare birds in the swamps of Arkansas have now sighted a huge flock of the rare birds in the skies over Washington, D.C. Yes, the endangered birds have actually been living in our nation’s capital for the past 60 years.
Building nests from government red tape and shredded secret documents, the birds were quite at home in the halls of congress. Living in pork barrels and under bridges-to-nowhere, they thrived unnoticed right under the noses of our nation’s power-brokers.
But on Thursday a huge flock of the birds formed over the Capitol to begin their migratory trek out of D.C. It seems that climate change brought on by the recent health-care debate is driving the rare birds back to the swamps. Scientists who examined a woodpecker that fell from the sky near the Lincoln Memorial found that the bird was suffering from heat exhaustion. “We believe it is the result of over-exposure to the hot hair emanating from Congress,” she said.
The bird also appeared to be disoriented—presumably because he flew too close to the President’s spin doctor. When the woodpecker attempted to stand, researchers noticed that one of his legs was longer than the other, a condition commonly associated with having one’s leg pulled too much by politicians.
A psychiatrist checked the bird’s emotional condition and determined that it was suffering from trauma symptoms associated with Post Healthcare Debate Syndrome. “We see this most often in ducks who have survived the hunting season,” he told us.
Scientists believe the rest of the flock may be suffering from similar conditions. A team of veterinarians is being assembled in the Cash River Bottoms near Brinkley, Arkansas to treat the refugee birds as soon as they arrive.
One doctor gave this ominous prediction: “As the debate over health care continues causing climate change in Washington—with ever-increasing smoke screen emissions and the like—this phenomenon could become commonplace among all forms of life inhabiting our nation’s capital.”
