1. "Our search, though intense, covered only about eight percent of the 550,000 forested acres in the Delta region."
We're being encouraged to believe that 92% of the Big Woods hasn't yet been searched, but that's not at all true. When Cornell says "covered" in this sense, I think they are referring only to the 4750 hours spent searching 145 square kilometers in one particular way--that is, by walking global positioning system–guided parallel transects spaced 50 to 55 m apart.
Beyond those hours, an additional 17000+ hours of other search time was also expended, and I would bet that plenty of time was spent searching in that "officially uncovered" 92% of the Big Woods.
2. "Given that the incredibly high stem density in this habitat made seeing even common Pileated Woodpeckers difficult, we have plenty of hope that a breeding pair of Ivory-bills simply has yet to be found."
Well, that same stem density didn't seem to hinder Tim Gallagher's view nearly as much. On page 149 of The Grail Bird, he writes this of the Bayou de View area:
Everywhere we turned, we saw pileated, red-bellied, red-headed, and downy woodpeckers, plus a few yellow-bellied sapsuckers.On page 153, Gallagher goes on to say:
And we had been seeing dozens of pileateds and pointing them out right and left, commenting on their field marks and constantly asking ourselves whether we could possibly mistake them for an ivory-bill.
Posts
