The ivory-billed woodpecker will not be listed as extinct - for now

Federal wildlife officials said Monday they are delaying a long-awaited decision to declare the ivory-billed woodpecker extinct, months after grainy photos and videos emerged that purported to show the bird flying through a Louisiana forest.

In 2021, the agency seemed ready to declare the so-called Lord God Bird extinct: The US Fish and Wildlife Service announced plans to remove 23 species, including the ivory-billed woodpecker, from the endangered species list due to extinction. Thorough scrutiny of "the best scientific and commercial data available" had led to the conclusion the bird no longer exists, the agency told CNN.

On Monday, Fish and Wildlife declared 21 of those species extinct - and the ivory-billed woodpecker is not among them.

"Although the delisting proposal included the ivory-billed woodpecker, the Service will continue to analyze and review the information before deciding whether to delist the ivory-billed woodpecker," the agency wrote in a news release.

The government's last accepted sighting of the red-crowned bird species was in April 1944 by artist and birder Don Eckelberry.

Read more: Is the ivory-billed woodpecker extinct?

But expert biologists and birdwatchers have been adamant the nation's largest woodpecker is still out there. Just after the feds announced the proposal to remove the bird, public comments poured in from ornithologists, amateur birders and even communities like the Cherokee Nation, whose leaders asserted the creature is a symbol whose "influence on our cultural activities remains to this day."