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Ivory-billed Woodpecker (formerly updates) (4 Viewers)
- Thread starter KC Foggin
- Start date
choupique1
Well-known member
combined with the smell of a wet dog.....naples said:
cyberthrush
Well-known member
drongo said:
yes, but the tests could be debated... and the DNA could ALSO be debated...
genetic testing is NOT 100% infallible.
Xenospiza
Distracted
Some sequences are known – go for those. It's relatively easy to test and surely less debatable than blurry or 6-pixel video footage.cyberthrush said:
Errors can be reduced by sending samples to different labs, and using as many outgroups as possible (like all Campephilus woodpeckers, all North American Woodpeckers, a Hooded Merganser, a Turkey, a Black Vulture, and of course a Fishcrow!)
Habitat Shift?
A couple of recent posts have mentioned scaling of spruce pines and apparent observations of IBWOs digging grubs from the bases of saw palmettos. Neither of these species cannot survive frequent and long-term inundation/high groundwater levels.
spruce pine - faculatative wetland
saw palmetto - faculatative upland
Source: National List of Plant Species That Occur in Wetlands, Region 2 - Southeast.
Perhaps the population is so large that they are expanding into upland habitats? Should searchers abandon those tippy kayaks and start hiking into upland areas? Naw! Maintain the current paradigm...
Just a botanist trapped in a birder's body...
olivacea
A couple of recent posts have mentioned scaling of spruce pines and apparent observations of IBWOs digging grubs from the bases of saw palmettos. Neither of these species cannot survive frequent and long-term inundation/high groundwater levels.
spruce pine - faculatative wetland
saw palmetto - faculatative upland
Source: National List of Plant Species That Occur in Wetlands, Region 2 - Southeast.
Perhaps the population is so large that they are expanding into upland habitats? Should searchers abandon those tippy kayaks and start hiking into upland areas? Naw! Maintain the current paradigm...
Just a botanist trapped in a birder's body...
olivacea
Last edited:
MacGillivray's Trout
Well-known member
emupilot said:
Which ones have been debunked?
MacGillivray's Trout
Well-known member
timeshadowed said:
What is your definition of soon?
MacGillivray's Trout
Well-known member
timeshadowed said:
You just don't get it do you? Or maybe I don't get it. Please explain why I will regret my decision to be skeptical in the lack of evidence presented thus far. When the "killer" shot comes in, I won't be skeptical anymore. Where does regret figure into that?
chris murphy
Used Register
Xenospiza said:
Which year???
HASnyder
Well-known member
Today's Auk (v 123, no 4, pp 1185-1189) carries a letter (3 pp + 1 page of references) from Jerry Jackson tidying up some questions raised in the back-and-forth w/CLO et. al. among them the question of whether his original piece was peer reviewed (it was invited by the editor and was a Perspectives in Ornithology, i.e. an editorial or opinion piece, and therefore as such was not subject to the peer-review system, but it was in fact reviewed by 13 colleagues whose comments were sent on to the editor of the Auk). Fitzpatrick et al then have a 1/2-page response following JJ's piece. Their tone is much calmer than before. This should appear online in the next few weeks
EMalatesta
Well-known member
timeshadowed said:
That's good to hear because I'm starting to get real hungry. I'm tired of the chicken bones we normally get from the true believers.
EMalatesta
Well-known member
"And I believe the people who have "seen" Bigfoot."
Didn't need to be. Just calling a spade a spade.
Russ Jones said:
Didn't need to be. Just calling a spade a spade.
MacGillivray's Trout said:
Without wading back into the discussion, several sources of "kents" have been eliminated, like Blue Jays, Sandhill Cranes, Nuthatches, and traffic noise. The closest was a baby deer noise, although IIRC it too wasn't quite right. Criticisms of some of the observers ignores the sightings with high quality field notes by a very experienced and respected observer. I don't remember the alternative dark bird with white trailing edges Xenospiza mentioned nor the discussion of cavity holes, so I can't comment on those.
choupique1
Well-known member
EMalatesta said:
apples and oranges not spades and spades for the 1111th time... bigfoot.. has never existed.. or having been proved to have been in existence....
evolutionarily speaking.... the last generally accepted IBWO evidence is fairly recent.. and... AGAIN>..
try to find a proper authority at the LDWF or USFWs that will go on record saying the IBWO is extinct... then ask them about bigfoot.. two completely different discussions.........
choupique1
Well-known member
chris murphy said:
2007..
timeshadowed
Time is a Shadow
The article, "MN Nest Could Swing Bald Eagles' Status",
http://www.startribune.com/531/story/779817.html
shows clearly just how USA laws can affect a landowner's right to even sell his property if an endangered bird is nesting there. It is a good example of why any private land owner who has a nesting pair of IBWO's would want to keep this fact from any government agency.
I have posted the article here because the above link will expire soon.
http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?p=717902#post717902
http://www.startribune.com/531/story/779817.html
shows clearly just how USA laws can affect a landowner's right to even sell his property if an endangered bird is nesting there. It is a good example of why any private land owner who has a nesting pair of IBWO's would want to keep this fact from any government agency.
I have posted the article here because the above link will expire soon.
http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?p=717902#post717902
So apparently it should be possible to do radioisotope analysis of feathers to find how old they are.
The Birds of North America Online page on IBWO says that Agey and Heinzmann reported seeing IBWO and in 1968 "they retrieved small dark feathers from a downed cavity and a white feather, which was identified by Alexander Wetmore as the innermost secondary of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker (Agey and Heinzmann 1971a, 1971b). The feathers and Wetmore’s letter are in the collections at the University of Florida Museum of Natural History."
Apparently this finding was controversial - I think I remember reading somewhere that (although I can't find it) that this was partly because a similar feather was reported missing from a specimen.
So if feather dating is possible, why hasn't it been done on this one, to see if it was really shed in the late 60s or much earlier?
Apparently there has been a DNA study of this feather - this page
http://www.si.edu/research/spotlight/04_14.html#Woodpecker
from the Smithsonian says
"NMNH scientists Robert Fleischer and Carla Dove and colleagues began the project as a simple barcoding effort to add the Ivory-billed Woodpecker sequence to the Barcode of Life Database (BoLD). In addition, they wanted to know whether a feather found in 1968 in Florida was really an Ivory-billed Woodpecker feather."
It then talks about how their studies showed that the Cuban IBWO was a separate species. However I can't find anything that says whether they confirmed that the 1968 feather was IBWO. It's not mentioned in their paper. Does anyone know what the outcome was?
And if they were already analysing it, why didn't they date it?
The Birds of North America Online page on IBWO says that Agey and Heinzmann reported seeing IBWO and in 1968 "they retrieved small dark feathers from a downed cavity and a white feather, which was identified by Alexander Wetmore as the innermost secondary of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker (Agey and Heinzmann 1971a, 1971b). The feathers and Wetmore’s letter are in the collections at the University of Florida Museum of Natural History."
Apparently this finding was controversial - I think I remember reading somewhere that (although I can't find it) that this was partly because a similar feather was reported missing from a specimen.
So if feather dating is possible, why hasn't it been done on this one, to see if it was really shed in the late 60s or much earlier?
Apparently there has been a DNA study of this feather - this page
http://www.si.edu/research/spotlight/04_14.html#Woodpecker
from the Smithsonian says
"NMNH scientists Robert Fleischer and Carla Dove and colleagues began the project as a simple barcoding effort to add the Ivory-billed Woodpecker sequence to the Barcode of Life Database (BoLD). In addition, they wanted to know whether a feather found in 1968 in Florida was really an Ivory-billed Woodpecker feather."
It then talks about how their studies showed that the Cuban IBWO was a separate species. However I can't find anything that says whether they confirmed that the 1968 feather was IBWO. It's not mentioned in their paper. Does anyone know what the outcome was?
And if they were already analysing it, why didn't they date it?
humminbird
Well-known member
timeshadowed said:
To be fair the prohibition is not against selling the property - he can do that all he wants. They simply can not change the landscape around the nest.
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