Ivory-billed Woodpecker (formerly updates) (2 Viewers)

[GreatHornedOwl]

Well, because the authorities in China disgracefully allowed a magnificent mammal to go extinct doesn't mean that the IBWO is extinct.
There has been plenty of evidence, but I admit that conclusive proof is absent. (And by the way, have any of the experts identified the three birds from the Choctawhatchee posted here? Many expert guesses, but no certainty!).
And talking of the Choctawhatchee, apparently a video from there will be released shortly. Grainy, but taken in conjunction with a sighting. We'll see.

And I take a little hope from the fact that just as you changed your mind a couple of times in the past, you might do so again!:t:

... So how gracefully did other authorities allow the IBWO to live ? The colour of money is the same everywhere, "valuable habitat" doesn't mean jack sh.t to these people.

You're right, conclusive proof (= confirmed observations) are absent.

As for changing my mind now and then - well my reaction was first sceptic, then positive and hopeful, but the lack of confirmed observations forces me to be sceptic again. I remain open minded however.

 

[GreatHornedOwl]

Please provide some documentation of this claim. Reading Tanner and others, I find that, even when guided by someone who had recently seen the bird in the area, the ONLY time Tanner was able to find a bird was when it was on a nest tree that was known. I find no authors that report this bird was easy to find except on nest trees, with the exception of Audubon's famous statement that the birds were "abundant" in Buffalo Bayou - now downtown Houston.

Other authors :

Roger Tory Peterson & Bayard Christie around 1942, Singer Tract : after a couple of days, they located two females, and were able to observe them for a while. They were directed to the right place by the same guide who also assisted Tanner : Jack Kuhn

Don Eckelberry 1944 (last confirmed observation American mainland) : after something like a couple of weeks or more, he was able to locate the last known IBWO of the USA subspecies; once he had found it, he was able to observe it and sketch it for a prolonged time, the bird always returned to it's roost tree

E. Hasbrouck, late 19th century, looked for it in Florida and found it

William Brewster searched for them in 1890 in Florida : he found them, and was able to shoot every IBWO in that area at leisure

and so on


Of course, you'll need some assistance of a guide to look for rare birds ... same goes for many other species , BUT : once located, there are usually confirmed observations.

You talk of nest trees, well, they did find several big woodpecker holes in trees the last couple of years; always they commented that those were "good signs", "promising", bla bla bla.... so, if the bird usually hangs around in the neighbourhood of a nest or roost tree, like Tanner's birds, well why didn't these "promising" "good-looking" woodpecker holes yield any Ivorybills ?

 

[dave_in_michigan]

<snip>By the way : it IS possible for competent scientists to do proper and thorough research of an area or a habitat, and then declare if a species is extinct or not; I refer to the case of the Yangtse River Dolphin, which has recently been declared totally extinct. The whole yangtse river was searched, and not a single individual was observed; so, it was duly and objectively declared extinct. It was all done in a very correct manner, and researchers said they regretted the extinction, but there were the facts.

Perhaps all Ivorybill searchers should sit together, and think about this. And then maybe one last thorough and objective search of possible habitat should follow. <snip>

Hi Owl. I agree with this statement and had earlier tried to get some discussion going in this direction. (Link back to that discussion here

<snip> There are ways to prove (with some confidence level) that the bird is not present, and in fact this tends to be the better approach to finding whether they are there or not. That's my real point. <snip>

Never really got much traction though, as the discussion shifted to "burden of proof" instead...

I can certainly imagine thoroughly check a river system, but the challenge of thoroughly checking very large tracts of land for a highly mobile bird strikes me as a much more difficult problem.

315 cameras deployed in the Choctawhatchee may seem like a lot, but if they each cover a 20 X 20 yard footprint (a generous number I think), then all of them together are only viewing 26 acres. That's less than 5 hundredths of one percent of the 57,000 acre Choctawhatchee WMA. And the "potential habitat area" is probably much larger than just the WMA boundaries. I don't think that cameras will ever provide enough coverage to show with any confidence that the bird is not present in such large tracts. The argument will always be that they're in there, but we missed them (sound familiar?).

Stereo (directional) listening stations might have a shot at it, since their coverage areas are much MUCH larger than cameras. However I believe the strategy of the search teams has been to try to maximize their chance of success by focusing on "hot spots", instead of devising a more thorough blanketing approach (but I don't know this). If the bird is extinct, then such a "best chance" approach will NEVER provide the right evidence to close this out, and this could in theory go on forever.

If there really are live IBWOs out there, then they must be wary in which case a blanketing approach (contra the "hot spot" approach) is probably a better strategy anyway, if it can be done. And THEN if they don't find them at least then we'll know with confidence that they're really not there.

Whether or not it's possible to blanket such large areas and be done with it, I don't know. I'd love to hear more details on how to do it.

 

[salar53]

The Colour of Money

Of course I agree with your comment about the colour of money. Not many have acted gracefully towards the IBWO, from native Americans to collectors, to hunters, to timber merchants and to developers.
I suppose when Pandora opened the box, greed was one of the evils unleashed upon us all!
But hope was left.

And of course I don't hope that the dodo still exists. That is unrealistic. But Geoff Hill, a leading ornithologist, and Tyler Hicks, a top birder, have, with many others, claimed to have seen the IBWO.
That's partly where my hope lies.

And you have acknowledged that you will change your mind again if and when the definitive conclusive proof is obtained.
So I hope that the clinching photograph is taken.

... So how gracefully did other authorities allow the IBWO to live ? The colour of money is the same everywhere, "valuable habitat" doesn't mean jack sh.t to these people.

You're right, conclusive proof (= confirmed observations) are absent.

As for changing my mind now and then - well my reaction was first sceptic, then positive and hopeful, but the lack of confirmed observations forces me to be sceptic again. I remain open minded however.

 

[humminbird]

Other authors :

Roger Tory Peterson & Bayard Christie around 1942, Singer Tract : after a couple of days, they located two females, and were able to observe them for a while. They were directed to the right place by the same guide who also assisted Tanner : Jack Kuhn

Don Eckelberry 1944 (last confirmed observation American mainland) : after something like a couple of weeks or more, he was able to locate the last known IBWO of the USA subspecies; once he had found it, he was able to observe it and sketch it for a prolonged time, the bird always returned to it's roost tree

E. Hasbrouck, late 19th century, looked for it in Florida and found it

William Brewster searched for them in 1890 in Florida : he found them, and was able to shoot every IBWO in that area at leisure

and so on


Of course, you'll need some assistance of a guide to look for rare birds ... same goes for many other species , BUT : once located, there are usually confirmed observations.

You talk of nest trees, well, they did find several big woodpecker holes in trees the last couple of years; always they commented that those were "good signs", "promising", bla bla bla.... so, if the bird usually hangs around in the neighbourhood of a nest or roost tree, like Tanner's birds, well why didn't these "promising" "good-looking" woodpecker holes yield any Ivorybills ?

Interesting - Peterson, Singer tract and Kuhn - sounds like the same tree Tanner was directed to them with by Kuhn. I know Eckleberry it was the same tree. Not familiar with the writing you cite in FL so can't comment.

Tanner found a lot of trees with big holes in them too. He too found no birds most of the time.

 

[GreatHornedOwl]

Tanner found a lot of trees with big holes in them too. He too found no birds most of the time.

... But eventually he did, and observed them on a regular basis.
None of the Cornell, Arkansas and other searchers has been able to observe an IBWO so far, and it's now more than two years ago since they boasted they would prove the existence of the bird.

In the meantime, they're still in pursuit of this obsession of them, instead of paying attention to conservation issues elsewhere - many American birds which used to be common 25 years ago have declined about 80% - that's quite alarming I would say -, and nothing is done by Cornell ; as for their obsession, it isn't even the bird anymore that is the object of their obsession, but their desparate attempts at trying to cover up their failure.

 

[Dark eyed Junco]

.
In the meantime, they're still in pursuit of this obsession of them, instead of paying attention to conservation issues elsewhere - many American birds which used to be common 25 years ago have declined about 80% - that's quite alarming I would say -, and nothing is done by Cornell ; as for their obsession, it isn't even the bird anymore that is the object of their obsession, but their desparate attempts at trying to cover up their failure.

Agreed.
That video was a Pileated. I've seen them look identical to that, flying away from me at that angle. It's sad but what can you do. I thought it was too good to be true
.o God bless the Ivory billed.

 

[emupilot]

The draft recovery plan for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker has been released by the Fish and Wildlife Service here (pdf).

 

[Edward woodwood]

Step 1
Find your woodpecker

Step 2
See step 1

There's a Recovery Plan that's cheap at twice the price

 

[Ilya Maclean]

So FWS are going to spend almost US$28 million on an extinct bird species, only about 6% of which is to be spend on something useful like habitat protection / enhancement. Lunacy! They'll be drafting up plans for bigfoot next. Stick to conserving what's left for christ sake rather than pouring already scarce conservation money down the drain

 

[CornishExile]

So FWS are going to spend almost US$28 million on an extinct bird species, only about 6% of which is to be spend on something useful like habitat protection / enhancement. Lunacy! They'll be drafting up plans for bigfoot next. Stick to conserving what's left for christ sake rather than pouring already scarce conservation money down the drain

If only they were... instead of being merely lunacy, a cursory scan through the plan and reading between the lines makes me think what they are suggesting borders on the certifiable.

The cost estimates they provide are for the period ending 2010. But elsewhere in the plan they state "delisting should be initiated in 2075, if recovery criteria are met" - so the species is proposed to remain a priority for almost 70 more years... which is just as well, as they coyly note "recovery is anticipated to take a long time."

By far the biggest chunks of cost estimates* for the >2010 period are allocated to forestry work and land management headings (e.g. forestry inventories 3.5m / reforestation & beneficial forest management practices 5m / protecting priority lands 11m)- totalling approximately $20m of the budget. As we all know, habitat work isn't a one-off silver bullet, and once committed to is an ongoing process. I wonder how long this sort of spending will be sustained post 2010?

(* incidentally, the allocation of $700k to "Investigate the ecology of Ivory-billed woodpecker through detailed investigations of appropriate surrogate species" rings some cynical alarm bells for this grant assessor/requester)

Of course, this recovery plan has been drafted on the assumption that the species is extant, and as such has to make further assumptions as to what should be done. Terrifying though that there does not appear to be a process built into the recovery plan to challenge / firm up that initial assumption. Apparently, in the absence of further hard data on extant populations the recovery plan will rumble on being implemented regardless. Scary.

The salutory lessons of this debacle will continue to be learnt for some years to come it seems.

ce

 

[Bonsaibirder]

Frightening!

If only they were... instead of being merely lunacy, a cursory scan through the plan and reading between the lines makes me think what they are suggesting borders on the certifiable.

The cost estimates they provide are for the period ending 2010. But elsewhere in the plan they state "delisting should be initiated in 2075, if recovery criteria are met" - so the species is proposed to remain a priority for almost 70 more years... which is just as well, as they coyly note "recovery is anticipated to take a long time."

By far the biggest chunks of cost estimates* for the >2010 period are allocated to forestry work and land management headings (e.g. forestry inventories 3.5m / reforestation & beneficial forest management practices 5m / protecting priority lands 11m)- totalling approximately $20m of the budget. As we all know, habitat work isn't a one-off silver bullet, and once committed to is an ongoing process. I wonder how long this sort of spending will be sustained post 2010?

(* incidentally, the allocation of $700k to "Investigate the ecology of Ivory-billed woodpecker through detailed investigations of appropriate surrogate species" rings some cynical alarm bells for this grant assessor/requester)

Of course, this recovery plan has been drafted on the assumption that the species is extant, and as such has to make further assumptions as to what should be done. Terrifying though that there does not appear to be a process built into the recovery plan to challenge / firm up that initial assumption. Apparently, in the absence of further hard data on extant populations the recovery plan will rumble on being implemented regardless. Scary.

The salutory lessons of this debacle will continue to be learnt for some years to come it seems.

ce

 

[IBWO_Agnostic]

BOOOM!!!

That's the sound of Fishcrow's head exploding when he realizes there is not one mention of his sightings in the Recovery Plan.

Oops, I didn't read far enough. His sightings ARE mentioned on Page 131. My bad.

 

[CornishExile]

BOOOM!!!

That's the sound of Fishcrow's head exploding when he realizes there is not one mention of his sightings in the Recovery Plan.

Oops, I didn't read far enough. His sightings ARE mentioned on Page 131. My bad.

"purporting" - shall make that my Word-of-the-day.

ce

 

[humminbird]

So FWS are going to spend almost US$28 million on an extinct bird species, only about 6% of which is to be spend on something useful like habitat protection / enhancement. Lunacy! They'll be drafting up plans for bigfoot next. Stick to conserving what's left for christ sake rather than pouring already scarce conservation money down the drain

If we are not sure what the steps are in a Recovery Plan, we should not comment. At this stage NO moneys are committed - this is simply a wish list of how they propose to spend moneys to acheive a goal they have established - not a budget for moneys they have. I would spend $200K to get an advanced degree, $500K to travel (and see some of the amazing birds I hear about on this board), $100K to get myself out of debt and help my kids, etc. if I came into the money. Realistically I have $50K to spend next year so that is what I will build my budget around. At the moment, I do not know if any of the programs mentioned in the DRAFT PLAN have any money at all.

This is a draft after all - it still has to go through public comment, administrative review and aproval. It will probably be modified at least once in that process. With the notoriety and attention it is receiving, I would be surprised if it is not modified SIGNIFICANTLY in that time.

Again, it is easy to sit at a computer and throw stones. I personally know some members of this team, and it has not been easy to write a plan for something many of them are not convinced is there.

 

[CornishExile]

Again, it is easy to sit at a computer and throw stones. I personally know some members of this team, and it has not been easy to write a plan for something many of them are not convinced is there.

To be fair, some of the 'stones' are coming from fairly well-informed sources when it comes to assessing the merits of proposed conservation projects.

The cost estimates include a relatively small slice of the total budget for ongoing searches. Surely if there is an element of doubt in the conservation world at large, and amongst some of the authors of this piece in particular with regard the status of the IBWO, nailing that status comes before anything else? I see no prioritisation matrix for the various activities listed in the estimates, which is a worry. There seems to be an underlying assumption, whether believed by or imposed upon the authors that the IBWO is extant. Witness the grating use of the present tense throughout when discussing the bird, and the complete lack of any qualifiers. Where are the might's/could's/may's which would indicate some consistent note of caution?

This piece of work smacks of a done deal. Come to think of it, it smacks of a request for funding, rather than merely a proposed action plan. These things have a habit of becoming self-fulfilling prophecies.

ce

 

[salar53]

Surely there is some hysterical overreaction here?
It is proposed that 28 million dollars be spent over the next three years improving habitat, planting trees, creating environmental-friendly jobs and generally enhancing the southern forests.
Now if there are 300 million people in the USA, that works out at roughly 0.0933 dollars per head. (I am no mathematician!).
Per year, that works out at 0.0311 dollars per head.
A paltry 3.11 cents per head per year.
And the words I'm reading here to describe this "huge" cost?
Lunacy
Bigfoot
Certifiable
Terrifying
Debacle
Frightening

In comparison, I have come across a price which is truly frightening. Apparently one United States B2 bomber, capable of destroying many habitats and wiping out millions of human lives, costs 2.1 THOUSAND MILLION DOLLARS.

My two cents!

 

[Edward woodwood]

I personally know some members of this team, and it has not been easy to write a plan for something many of them are not convinced is there.

eh?

WTF?

B

They don't have much to say about Mr Hill's nine pairs down there in the chockfullahooey? Anyone else wondering about that?

 

[lewis20126]

Lunacy
Bigfoot
Certifiable
Terrifying
Debacle
Frightening

Sorry Salar53, for a moment I thought you were summarising this thread...

Must read that recovery plan - does it include a time machine? or is cloning from DNA the answer?

a

 

[emupilot]

The draft recovery plan appears to only include information through early 2006, so that's why there's no mention of the Choctawhatchee.