The claimed rediscovery of North America’s rarest bird, the ivory-billed woodpecker, in the early 2000s, was one of the most high-profile events in global ornithological history. The reappearance of the bird in a remote locality in eastern Arkansas seemed to vindicate belief in the innate resilience and adaptability of nature, yet within a few months the claims became shrouded in doubt and uncertainty. This article argues that the reasons for the bird’s likely extinction in the early 1940s go beyond the usual parameters of conservation biology to include the violent impetus toward nature unleashed by settler colonialism and the plantation system. The changing ecologies of the Delta are explored through a dialogue between critical landscape studies and emerging perspectives on race, masculinity, and violence that have been extensively occluded under the burgeoning interdisciplinary fascination with the Anthropocene. I conclude that the story of the ivory-billed woodpecker gives credence to a modified reading of the Plantationocene as an alternative conceptual framing for global environmental change.

声称在 2000 年代初重新发现了北美最稀有的鸟类象牙嘴啄木鸟，这是全球鸟类学史上最引人注目的事件之一。这只鸟在阿肯色州东部偏远地区的再次出现似乎证明了人们对大自然与生俱来的复原力和适应性的信念，但在几个月内，这种说法就被怀疑和不确定性笼罩了。本文认为，这种鸟类在 1940 年代初可能灭绝的原因超出了保护生物学的常规参数，还包括定居者殖民主义和种植园系统对自然的猛烈推动。通过批判性景观研究和关于种族、男性气质、在人类世蓬勃发展的跨学科迷恋下，暴力被广泛掩盖。我的结论是，象牙嘴啄木鸟的故事证明了对种植新世的修改解读，作为全球环境变化的替代概念框架。