Ivory-Billed Woodpecker continued (1 Viewer)

[RafaelMatias]

So how many Ivory-bills are still out there? 100? 200? Are you acquainted with the concept of minimum viable population? I'm sure you are. If there are so few IBWO out there that no solid evidence at all can be obtained for decades, how would the species survive if some evidence could be gathered that one or so birds were still alive? At best you'd be documenting its extinction, the very last IBWO alive, just before the species went definitely extinct.
Finding 1 or 2 birds is not enough for anything. You'd need a population probably in the order of the hundreds in order for it to be viable. Especially so if the range of the (ghost) species is as large as some have been suggesting. Do you really believe hundreds of IBWO can be missed like that by all and everyone? And if there's a pair or two around, how is that biologically plausible.
All in all, this is a depressing subject, and I can only hope I'm deeply wrong.

 

[Farnboro John]

as said....................................."Some obviously do not even know the basics on the IB;"

Well, I know the basics of even American ornithology, and those are that the American list is not maintained by USFWS: so where is the endorsement from ABA? Where is the acceptance by AOU? Where is the evidence? And I've seen more people try to bluff their way through a sticky patch with a bunch of abbreviations they hope will deflect criticism than you've had hot dinners.

Lets be honest, your handle says it all. You want this to be a faith-based crusade and it isn't. So, 1TruthSeeker, I raise you 1SolidEvidenceRequirement. Without which, you will get nowhere on here, because the BF BS filter is robust.

Have a nice day.

John

 

[1TruthSeeker]

It wasn't the identification of the feather that I was referring to. I was referring to your comment about numerous other recent reports and 'evidence' that you remarked that I must have missed. I have yet to read an observation account, or see an image, that has convinced me that it had to be an IBWO. It's as simple as that.

And you can opine what you like about my ID skills. I'm sure I'm capable of misidentifying Campephilus and Dryocopus species in the field given a less than clear view (everyone is). Having seen plenty of species of both genera in the field, I'm very aware of what they can look like given a brief or distant view. And aware of how utterly bonkers the notion of a Campephilus species persisting in the USA for so long without someone getting a clear image of it, is..

LS the present subject is the multiple Agey et al. sightings over years, in known IB range and supporting evidence inclusive of field notes, recordings, feathers, cavity examination (measurements indicate IB). Have you found the paper? If not I really can't believe you are that interested in the IB. Or you are trying to avoid the fact that the entire specie's population periodically evades detection for decades at a time?

Although its mentioned in an hour several times above......it was multiple sightings, observers over years. And a fresh IB feather, downy feathers and an IB roost. It was all in a peer reviewed paper. FL RBC committee member, past President gave the "event" much press for decades (but you have to be serious US birder to have seen that) .

If you would like to discuss the totality of IB data we can get to it after you discuss the inconvenient Fl events. The USFWS presently lists the IB as endangered and specifically stated multiple times that recent proclamations in peer reviewed paper WAS CORRECT and skeptics were wrong then and still are. No reversal. Skeptical fantasies and hissy fits are nice and kangaroo courts sometimes too, but the ruling by many impartial professionals VOTED and concluded the species lives.

We are however thankful for your opinion (even if repeated over and over) but do you have any field data (obviously it would be negative for presence) ? Some of us like to keep track of all locations for negative reports.

ps LA RBC also has NOT CONCLUDED THE SPECIES is extinct.....same IUCN, same etc etc.

Larry feather, feather, evidence, see above (less opinion)!!!

 

[1TruthSeeker]

Well, I know the basics of even American ornithology, and those are that the American list is not maintained by USFWS: so where is the endorsement from ABA? Where is the acceptance by AOU? Where is the evidence? And I've seen more people try to bluff their way through a sticky patch with a bunch of abbreviations they hope will deflect criticism than you've had hot dinners.

Lets be honest, your handle says it all. You want this to be a faith-based crusade and it isn't. So, 1TruthSeeker, I raise you 1SolidEvidenceRequirement. Without which, you will get nowhere on here, because the BF BS filter is robust.

Have a nice day.

John

Your opinions are too amateur birding and UK centric. Perhaps you have heard of one of the premier env. acts in the world, the US Endangered Species Act?

Also IUCN and CITES has regulatory and conservation implications well beyond the pragmatic and effective reach and scope of the ABA or AOU. None of these former groups presently describe or classify the species extinct. Land use here and federal capital flow is influenced by ESA's list of species which includes the IBWO as ENDANGERED as of this minute. Clubs and unions like ABA and AOU are NGO hobby organizations or volunteer affiliations. You conflate the relatively stronger political influence of organized birders in the UK with the ABA and its small number of club members, minor influence and minimal reach out of its specialty demographic (listers).

The great, great majority of Americans would not know what the ABA is, compared to the ESA, endangered species act.

Clubs do not have the power of the USFWS/ESA-----to control borders and pertinent commerce via Lacy Act (US wildlife law), gather public funds, make grants, purchase land, have a say in development on public lands, study endangered species, breed endangered species, staff thousands of scientists, prepare ES recovery plans, contribute to declaring areas wilderness (such as the greatest remaining virgin forest east of the Mississippi R. which has IBs), establish and add acreage to formal wildlife refuges and much more. The ESAct and USFWS is involved with all the preceding.

The USFWS enforces (some officers armed) the ESA. The ABA by great contrast organizes hobbyists, publishes ID articles, manages rare bird list serves, has photo contests, has a blog, votes on new area bird species, etc.

No one goes to court in the US, to stave off a bulldozer, to save Piping Plovers, Cerulean Warblers, Condors, Snail Kites, IBWOs etc. with an ABA species list !!! They go with the list of species protected by the ESA, various USFWS materials and perhaps breeding bird data gathered via exact Canadian and USFWS survey protocols.

However if we must play in your limited sphere, multiple US state RBCs accepted the IB as extant in 2005 or possibly extant.

 

[1TruthSeeker]

So how many Ivory-bills are still out there? 100? 200? Are you acquainted with the concept of minimum viable population? I'm sure you are. If there are so few IBWO out there that no solid evidence at all can be obtained for decades, how would the species survive if some evidence could be gathered that one or so birds were still alive? At best you'd be documenting its extinction, the very last IBWO alive, just before the species went definitely extinct.
Finding 1 or 2 birds is not enough for anything. You'd need a population probably in the order of the hundreds in order for it to be viable. Especially so if the range of the (ghost) species is as large as some have been suggesting. Do you really believe hundreds of IBWO can be missed like that by all and everyone? And if there's a pair or two around, how is that biologically plausible.
All in all, this is a depressing subject, and I can only hope I'm deeply wrong.

There are likely very few IBs left (much less than 100). You understand the problems well but have not considered some moderating hypotheticals and actual examples. Your inference that 100 or 200 birds is below any minimum viable population over at least one hundred years is not supported by many or any actual cases that led to many visible deformities let alone extinction. And there is the Black Robin case.......one pair has now led to 250 birds in 30 years.

Certainly the fitness to withstand many rare hypotheticals is not there for these robins but there they are with a 5000% increase in population.

Theoretical population dynamics in the past have generally considered a population of 50 animals enough to net out inbreeding. Genetic drift which can reduce the variability of a population needs more animals to ward off hypothetical problems that may or may not ever occur.

In general captive birds have reached lethal levels only when they are forced to breed with 1st cousins or worse for a few generations. 100 to 200 wildbird populations would have few of these types of matings.

I have done the inbreeding coefficient for Ivorybilled; it could be getting critical about 2030 as I recall but the starting N population used could be too low. Likely there were more than 34 birds to start with (26 Tanner asserted plus 8 which he missed in Mississippi = 34). Also IB could live longer than 15 years prolonging the time for pertinent problems to develop.

And the Black Robin case.......one pair has now led to 250 birds in 30 years. Conservationists and conservation does not necessarily stop because a small population in a small range might be exposed to a unknown disease that they have no immunity from. They put excess animals in different island habitats to reduce the impact of any hypothetical genetic drift.

Regardless of anything above the smaller the population the more risk for eventual extinction whether that be 200 years or 50,000 years or more.

Do you have any info/papers on inbreeding in any Picidae?

The habitat is here for many pairs but there are ecological problems that people like Williams above and others seem to be oblivious of.

 

[Farnboro John]

Your opinions are too amateur birding and UK centric. Perhaps you have heard of one of the premier env. acts in the world, the US Endangered Species Act?

Also IUCN and CITES has regulatory and conservation implications well beyond the pragmatic and effective reach and scope of the ABA or AOU. None of these former groups presently describe or classify the species extinct. Land use here and federal capital flow is influenced by ESA's list of species which includes the IBWO as ENDANGERED as of this minute. Clubs and unions like ABA and AOU are NGO hobby organizations or volunteer affiliations. You conflate the relatively stronger political influence of organized birders in the UK with the ABA and its small number of club members, minor influence and minimal reach out of its specialty demographic (listers).

The great, great majority of Americans would not know what the ABA is, compared to the ESA, endangered species act.

Clubs do not have the power of the USFWS/ESA-----to control borders and pertinent commerce via Lacy Act (US wildlife law), gather public funds, make grants, purchase land, have a say in development on public lands, study endangered species, breed endangered species, staff thousands of scientists, prepare ES recovery plans, contribute to declaring areas wilderness (such as the greatest remaining virgin forest east of the Mississippi R. which has IBs), establish and add acreage to formal wildlife refuges and much more. The ESAct and USFWS is involved with all the preceding.

The USFWS enforces (some officers armed) the ESA. The ABA by great contrast organizes hobbyists, publishes ID articles, manages rare bird list serves, has photo contests, has a blog, votes on new area bird species, etc.

No one goes to court in the US, to stave off a bulldozer, to save Piping Plovers, Cerulean Warblers, Condors, Snail Kites, IBWOs etc. with an ABA species list !!! They go with the list of species protected by the ESA, various USFWS materials and perhaps breeding bird data gathered via exact Canadian and USFWS survey protocols.

However if we must play in your limited sphere, multiple US state RBCs accepted the IB as extant in 2005 or possibly extant.

The great, great majority of Americans would also not know an IBWO from a hole in the ground. You are, as expected, covering the inability to produce a shred of hard evidence with nothing but flummery and abbreviations of utter irrelevance.

Birders and their organisations spend all their time assessing identifications and relentlessly hunting down bird species. Birders know how to approach non-birder descriptions. Rule one is size will be meaningless: it will be from 10% to 2000% out. Colour panels will be misplaced, colours will be inaccurately described. Observers will want their sighting to be the special bird not the common one. Only hard evidence will do and you haven't got it.

Your little band of Sasquatch-hunters has been unable to locate an IBWO to which the USFWS can apply the ESA. Time to recognise it's game over. The Ivory-billed Woodpecker is extinct.

John

 

[Sangahyando]

Your opinions are too amateur birding and UK centric.

I'm not confident in your ability to distinguish an amateur birder from a professional one...

 

[Andy Adcock]

There are likely very few IBs left (much less than 100). You understand the problems well but have not considered some moderating hypotheticals and actual examples. Your inference that 100 or 200 birds is below any minimum viable population over at least one hundred years is not supported by many or any actual cases that led to many visible deformities let alone extinction. And there is the Black Robin case.......one pair has now led to 250 birds in 30 years.

I find it difficult to conceive, that the last remaining bird in a population of a difficult to observe species, can be discovered (Stress Bristlefront) yet a supposedly, viable population of a loud, obvious bird, almost as big as a Turkey, can elude extensive searches over several decades.

 

[Larry Sweetland]

Perhaps the people trying to get evidence of the continued existence of IBWO would have more luck with Eskimo Curlew or Bachman's Warbler. They haven't been declared extinct yet either, and at least they have more potential for being overlooked than a massive great woodpecker.

 

[1TruthSeeker]

The great, great majority of Americans would also not know an IBWO from a hole in the ground. You are, as expected, covering the inability to produce a shred of hard evidence with nothing but flummery and abbreviations of utter irrelevance.

Birders and their organisations spend all their time assessing identifications and relentlessly hunting down bird species. Birders know how to approach non-birder descriptions. Rule one is size will be meaningless: it will be from 10% to 2000% out. Colour panels will be misplaced, colours will be inaccurately described. Observers will want their sighting to be the special bird not the common one. Only hard evidence will do and you haven't got it.

The Ivory-billed Woodpecker is extinct.

John

Then it's all settled; good.

1) no one can rebut or explain the Agey et al. Florida evidence and no one here even knew about the events. The endless claims of extinction 80 years ago are pushed back yet again.

2) the peer reviewed article on the events can't even be found by those here, whilst they hissy fit how easy it should be to get a picture of a bird that flushes at 200 yards or more in wet swamp, sometimes in million acre patches. This may give us minimal confidence that you are good at finding things, even easy ones.

3) Several of the top organizations staffed by thousands with dedicated personnel with more degrees than a thermometer and millions of hours of pertinent field experience say the Ivory-billed is alive and pseudo skeptics in chat rooms controlled by big brother may just be lonely . The top organizations are charged with many aspects of endangered species status and management while these chat room types just hallucinate they are.

4) People strongly declaring things that they can't possible know, then claiming incredulity at others fact-based assertions are a sad sign of today's lack of critical thinking and self awareness....... with a healthy dose of blatant hypocrisy rampant . " The Ivory-billed Woodpecker is extinct".

My job is done here until and if something that imitates coherent thought pops out of the brush kinda like another over-taped, critically rare species is forced to by listers.

 

[Deb Burhinus]

My job is done here until and if something that imitates coherent thought pops out of the brush kinda like another over-taped, critically rare species is forced to by listers.

iv. There is evidence that "single knocks" for IBWOs are positional for family units. Use these sporadically, and listen for responses or watch for sightings.

vi. IBWOs react like birds (stating the obvious), so it is possible that they will automatically react to the right stimulus, i.e. "forced behavior" as Matt Courtman calls it. An obvious possibility is a juvenile begging call which may have an instinctive component to stimulate an approach. No recorded begging calls exist for the IBWO, but they do for the related (in taxonomy, niche, and latitude) Magellanic Woodpecker. Playing this call, especially in a "hormonal" month, may elicit an approach.

I have field-tested the begging call hypothesis in an area known for possible IBWO and in two separate trips, a total of six field days, had one probable and two other possible sightings.

I am not sure how much ‘coherence’ there has been on this thread but I suppose IBOW listers apply different standards to themselves?

(What is your job here btw? I find it somewhat strange (perhaps due to a lack of critical thinking and hypocrisy) that affirmation from amateur listers and birders with very questionable skills in the field and of whom you hold in such low esteem, should be so important to your agenda.

 

[Andy Adcock]

My job is done here until and if something that imitates coherent thought pops out of the brush kinda like another over-taped, critically rare species is forced to by listers.

Or until you get a picture of one which isn't going to happen, if you spend all your time here is it?

 

[1TruthSeeker]

I am not sure how much ‘coherence’ there has been on this thread but I suppose IBOW listers apply different standards to themselves?

(What is your job here btw? I find it somewhat strange (perhaps due to a lack of critical thinking and hypocrisy) that affirmation from amateur listers and birders with very questionable skills in the field and of whom you hold in such low esteem, should be so important to your agenda.

As a heuristic metaphor for the potential of a fulfilling conversation............................ I do not generally converse with those who cant even get the banding code correct time and time again.

 

[Deb Burhinus]

As a heuristic metaphor for the potential of a fulfilling conversation............................ I do not generally converse with those who cant even get the banding code correct time and time again.

I write as I say it ‘I BOW’ because it works in my head as an acronym- mentally it is a lot faster than saying I,B,W,O - force of habit I suppose.

There are likely very few IB left (much less than 100)

Also IB could live longer than 15 years

Over in the UK, an Ivory Bill is a piece of legislation banning commercial use of ivory.

A bit silly to reduce the discussion down to the use of capital letters.

 

[dwatsonbirder]

1) no one can rebut or explain the Agey et al.

2) the peer reviewed article on the events can't even be found by those here

Would that be the 1971 paper in the highly esteemed and globally appreciated "Florida Naturalist"? If so, you're referencing it incorrectly - it should be Agey & Heinnzman, not Agey et al...

Why is it that criticism of these "peer-reviewed" papers cannot be addressed robustly by the "believers" without petty reductionist sentiment? If these downy feathers exist, why not have them genetically profiled against extant Campephilus? This may at least prove one of your assertions to be factually accurate...

 

[1TruthSeeker]

I write as I say it ‘I BOW’ because mentally it is a lot faster than saying I,B,W,O - force of habit I suppose.






Over in the UK, an Ivory Bill is a piece of legislation banning commercial use of ivory.

Quite telling but baffling. Expediency over accuracy. A bird was banded you know; if a skeptic finds the band can we be assume they will not recognize the species?

Do you get like discount fish and chips coupons for every 100 posts independent of quality ? (in return for page views for big brother). Jeez I hope quality isn't involved; some might starve.

 

[Deb Burhinus]

As a heuristic metaphor for the potential of a fulfilling conversation............................ I do not generally converse with those who cant even get the banding code correct time and time again.

Btw you are the second IBWO proselyte that has shut me down and refused answer me on this thread and now just being fricking RUDE.

Come back with a photo - until then accept the incredulity, scepticism having your ‘evidence‘ questioned and suck it up.

Good Day.

 

[1TruthSeeker]

Would that be the 1971 paper in the highly esteemed and globally appreciated "Florida Naturalist"? If so, you're referencing it incorrectly - it should be Agey & Heinnzman, not Agey et al...

Why is it that criticism of these "peer-reviewed" papers cannot be addressed robustly by the "believers" without petty reductionist sentiment? If these downy feathers exist, why not have them genetically profiled against extant Campephilus? This may at least prove one of your assertions to be factually accurate...

Pranty was involved also in his guide...........this has been mentioned multiple times; there are multiple authors on the events. ABA publication that is worshipped by some here was involved in making the events more mainstream. Please keep up for our esteemed readers.

Knowledge is not belief. Ignorance may be though.

 

[1TruthSeeker]

Btw you are the second IBWO proselyte that has shut me down and refused answer me on this thread and now just being fricking RUDE.

Come back with a photo - until then accept the incredulity, scepticism having your ‘evidence‘ questioned and suck it up.

Good Day.

Calm down. You have shown rehabilitation (IBWO) it's a potential great rebirth of our relationship. Do you forgive me?

 

[dwatsonbirder]

Pranty was involved also in his guide...........this has been mentioned multiple times; there are multiple authors on the events. ABA publication that is worshipped by some here was involved in making the events more mainstream. Please keep up for our esteemed readers.

Knowledge is not belief. Ignorance may be though.

Nice mature and rational response where you totally don't look like a tool. Honest. How about a mature response regarding your evidence and DNA profiling of the feathers? Or have they conveniently been lost?