Here are some snippets, with my comments in red:
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It doesn't take a lot of high-powered economic analysis to see why Mallard Pointe Lodge in Brinkley, Ark., doesn't cater to duck hunters the way it used to.
The ivory-billed woodpecker was spotted just a quarter-mile away from the 3,000-acre spread where Mallard Pointe, originally a duck hunting club, provided guides, dogs and open bars for hunters.
"We've set most of that aside and we have gone full force into bird watching," said manager Butch Turner.
I'm not sure that's a good move at this point.
The lodge finished a 10,000-square-foot addition last month that more than doubled its capacity. It signed up the biggest name in birding these days - Gene Sparling, the naturalist who first saw the ivory-bill in February 2004 - to lead some of its tours. Bird-watching packages for a seven-night stay cost $2,295 per person.
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"They [birders] don't stay in tents when they travel," state tourism Director Joe David Rice was quoted in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. "They stay in fine hotels, drink wine and eat expensive meals."
Maybe some birders fit the Thurston Howell III demographic, but I don't know any of them. I do know a lot of birders that sleep in cheap motels or tents (or their cars).
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