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Ivory-billed Woodpecker (formerly updates) (3 Viewers)

dave_in_michigan said:
I guess that's where I would expect some kind of pressure from the rest of the scientific community to hold them accountable for results... Who is doing this?

I can understand other professional ornitholigists wanting to be careful about mess with someone else's gravy train, but still... No public challenges from anyone on how the money is spent? Only critiques of their published claims?
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I'm really unclear on the point that you are trying to press here.

Except for a few souls that chose to jump into this highly questionable circle, very few birders or scientists believe that the Ivory-billed Woodpecker has been observed and continues to live.

I would suggest that you review the sad history of human-caused extinctions that have taken place over the last few centuries. Unfortunately, there are many, many cases of such extinctions. When a bird goes unobserved for long periods of time in its previously established habitat, this is very strong evidence for extinction. The case of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker is not exceptional.

The notion that a large, noisy, fervently sought bird such as the Ivory-billed Woodpecker could persist in North America for sixty years without being documented is simply ridiculous.
 
Rusty Blackbirds

streatham said:
Personally I'd go for working out why the Rusty Blackbirds population has dropped 80% over the last couple of decades --

Luke
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Odd that you mention Rusty Blackbirds... It's been discovered by Ivory-bill searchers in the Choctawhatchee River basin, that large numbers of Rusty Blackbirds winter in the cypress swamps! One of the Auburn University people is documenting all sightings. Saving habitat obviously helps a lot of species...
 
Ibwo Jima said:
Odd that you mention Rusty Blackbirds... It's been discovered by Ivory-bill searchers in the Choctawhatchee River basin, that large numbers of Rusty Blackbirds winter in the cypress swamps! One of the Auburn University people is documenting all sightings. Saving habitat obviously helps a lot of species...
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Hardly a discovery - it's well known that they require wet woodland habitat in winter. Obviously saving habitat is a good thing but lets prioritize. My original point was some searchers having a jolly in a helicopter is not my idea of money well spent.

Luke
 
Pointless

djleahy said:
I'm really unclear on the point that you are trying to press here...

...The notion that a large, noisy, fervently sought bird such as the Ivory-billed Woodpecker could persist in North America for sixty years without being documented is simply ridiculous.
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If there is no real chance, then my points are indeed pointless, which is pretty much what people here are saying.

(I do get it. I just don't agree with the premise.)
 
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What if the companies/governments call the searchers' bluff? 5 years to find the IBWO and then we go in with the bulldozers". What if they'd said that 5 years ago?

Save the habitat because of the Rusty Blackbirds (and everything else in there), not because of the imaginary woodpeckers.

salar53 said:
... in preserving what is left of the habitat, in buying and conserving more land and in looking after the environment that is there.

What a depressing future. Deforestation. Concrete and glass. Tarmac and aviation fuel. The smell of gunsmoke. Jingoistic cheering.
...
Click to expand...
 
Bonsaibirder said:
Save the habitat because of the Rusty Blackbirds (and everything else in there), not because of the imaginary woodpeckers.
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That's kind of my thinking Bonsai - this sadly could be a disaster waiting to happen for the conservation movement in the US. All this investment over a bird that might prove to have never been there. Not going to be helpful when it comes to trying to deal with other conservation issues.

Luke
 
streatham said:
That's kind of my thinking Bonsai - this sadly could be a disaster waiting to happen for the conservation movement in the US. All this investment over a bird that might prove to have never been there. Not going to be helpful when it comes to trying to deal with other conservation issues.

Luke
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There does seem to be a recent trend in the publics desire to see scientists proved wrong (cf climate change, GM crops, medical scares etc.), on both sides of the Atlantic at least. Fiascos like this do nothing but harm in the public eye to the reputations all those involved, and the discipline as a whole.
 
Imaginos said:
There does seem to be a recent trend in the publics desire to see scientists proved wrong (cf climate change, GM crops, medical scares etc.), on both sides of the Atlantic at least. Fiascos like this do nothing but harm in the public eye to the reputations all those involved, and the discipline as a whole.
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I don't think it's a "desire to see scientists proved wrong", so much as a decreasing public tolerance for over-hyped and exaggerated claims. Sometimes the media is to blame, but too often scientists themselves over-hype what might be good information because they feel it somehow necessary (and justified in their minds) in order to gain public and political momentum for their cause. I think a substantial portion of the public (in the U.S. at least) is broadly suspicious of "scientific studies", because they've seen too much of that kind of abuse.

Cornell's original announcement is a good example of this, and I agree it does hurt scientific credibility in the public's eye. But they're not the first, and sadly, won't be the last.

Not that it helps, but I doubt that more than 0.1% of the general public is paying any attention to this topic at all these days.
 
There is a half day session focussing on the search tomorrow at the 4th International Partners in Flight conference in McAllen Texas. Includes papers by Hill and some of the Cornell team. Will let you know if there is any startling revelations;)
 
abstract

humminbird said:
There is a half day session focussing on the search tomorrow at the 4th International Partners in Flight conference in McAllen Texas. Includes papers by Hill and some of the Cornell team. Will let you know if there is any startling revelations;)
Click to expand...

I see one abstract Linked from 4th International Partners in Flight Conference:
Scientific Sessions (PDF)

The Ivory-billed Woodpecker: Tools, Techniques, and Findings in the Search for Evidence
Chairs: Laurie Fenwood, Ron Rohrbaugh
Time: Saturday Afternoon
Summary
There are continuing questions from people about the progress of the search, related research, funding, and the status of pledged recovery efforts of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. This session would give us an opportunity to provide information to interested participants from a wide geographic area. A 30- minute discussion at the end will address “Where do we go from here?"
 
Not sure if this is worth posting or not - I KNOW I will get a lot of flack over it but here goes...

First, there was no startling photo or video tape presented, but there was a very impressive tape on which the bird was not conclusively identifiable other than that it was definitely a woodpecker and it was far whiter and significantly larger than any woodpecker I am familiar with. The scientist making the presentation was being upfront - there is nothing conclusive in anything presented. A big difference between this and the infamous video from Cornell - the photographers knew they were photographing the bird and identified the bird while the video was going - not afterwards. Very impressive field notes by the observer were presented with the video.

That said, the cummulative material presented was very impressive. Interestingly, one of the papers which is yet unpublished presented data comparing post 1960 reports with those generally accepted pre 1960 - and there is as much "evidence" supporting most of the pre 1960 as there is with most of the post 1960 materials. Interestingly, a "preFielding" photo he presented that is generally accepted was more obviously doctored than the two photos he presented from the Fielding set.

The most startling thing in my mind was a pole of the room this same presenter did before his program. When he asked "how many here believe the Ivory-billed Woodpecker still exists?" fully two thirds of the hands went up. This is at a Partners in Flight international meeting - a gathering of scientists. Say what you will - I was there and saw it. When he later (two sentences later) asked "how many here know the bird does not exist" only about 6 hands were raised.

My own hand did not go up, though if you asked me the same question now I am not sure I could keep it down.
 
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I remain undecided, but lean towards survival because from what I've read about Ivory-bills, they were always difficult to see except in the Singer Tract and a few other areas.

If there are Ivory-bills alive, I wouldn't expect many more sightings than what we have. This bird's been declared extinct three times already at least - let's not go for another.
 
No Flack

humminbird said:
Not sure if this is worth posting or not - I KNOW I will get a lot of flack over it but here goes...

First, there was no startling photo or video tape presented, but there was a very impressive tape on which the bird was not conclusively identifiable other than that it was definitely a woodpecker and it was far whiter and significantly larger than any woodpecker I am familiar with. The scientist making the presentation was being upfront - there is nothing conclusive in anything presented. A big difference between this and the infamous video from Cornell - the photographers knew they were photographing the bird and identified the bird while the video was going - not afterwards. Very impressive field notes by the observer were presented with the video.

That said, the cummulative material presented was very impressive. Interestingly, one of the papers which is yet unpublished presented data comparing post 1960 reports with those generally accepted pre 1960 - and there is as much "evidence" supporting most of the pre 1960 as there is with most of the post 1960 materials. Interestingly, a "preFielding" photo he presented that is generally accepted was more obviously doctored than the two photos he presented from the Fielding set.

The most startling thing in my mind was a pole of the room this same presenter did before his program. When he asked "how many here believe the Ivory-billed Woodpecker still exists?" fully two thirds of the hands went up. This is at a Partners in Flight international meeting - a gathering of scientists. Say what you will - I was there and saw it. When he later (two sentences later) asked "how many here know the bird does not exist" only about 6 hands were raised.

My own hand did not go up, though if you asked me the same question now I am not sure I could keep it down.
Click to expand...

You'll get no flack from me, Humminbird, because I found it a very interesting post, not least because most of the scientists present believe that the Ivory-billed Woodpecker exists.
Do you know when and where the tape was shot? By whom?
 
humminbird said:
Not sure if this is worth posting or not - I KNOW I will get a lot of flack over it but here goes...

First, there was no startling photo or video tape presented, but there was a very impressive tape on which the bird was not conclusively identifiable other than that it was definitely a woodpecker and it was far whiter and significantly larger than any woodpecker I am familiar with. The scientist making the presentation was being upfront - there is nothing conclusive in anything presented. A big difference between this and the infamous video from Cornell - the photographers knew they were photographing the bird and identified the bird while the video was going - not afterwards. Very impressive field notes by the observer were presented with the video.

That said, the cummulative material presented was very impressive. Interestingly, one of the papers which is yet unpublished presented data comparing post 1960 reports with those generally accepted pre 1960 - and there is as much "evidence" supporting most of the pre 1960 as there is with most of the post 1960 materials. Interestingly, a "preFielding" photo he presented that is generally accepted was more obviously doctored than the two photos he presented from the Fielding set.

The most startling thing in my mind was a pole of the room this same presenter did before his program. When he asked "how many here believe the Ivory-billed Woodpecker still exists?" fully two thirds of the hands went up. This is at a Partners in Flight international meeting - a gathering of scientists. Say what you will - I was there and saw it. When he later (two sentences later) asked "how many here know the bird does not exist" only about 6 hands were raised.

My own hand did not go up, though if you asked me the same question now I am not sure I could keep it down.
Click to expand...

I'm not giving flack, but a couple of points:

(1) Many non-believers probably wouldn’t bother attending such a talk – thus poll probably not representative. Incidentally the six are demonstrating poor science for reasons that have been discussed at length here. If they’d replaced the words “know” with “believe” it might have been a different story.

(2) A comparisons between post & pre-1960s records is rather like comparing apples and oranges, simply because there was less controversy back then and equipment differs. A comparison between bigfoot and UFO evidence might have been more interesting and revealing.....
 
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