Email from Phil Tongier

I just received the following email from Phil Tongier:

Sorry that I'm sending you so many emails the past few days. However, besides the Sparling quotation, (that grew from a 3/4 pound Bluegill to a 8 pound Largemouth Bass), your point on the roost hole also keeps coming back to mind. Again, correct me if I am wrong, wouldn't there have been a rather noisy, active, hard to miss roost hole for this king of woodpeckers if it still lived? Seriously. People in 1935 were not incredibly more savvy with woodscraft than folks today. We now face the waning months of 2005. From early 2004 to now we have NO evidence for an active roost hole. In 1935 they basically trotted into the woods, found IBWP's, set up camp, and filmed away. They did take time out to band a juvenile and photograph this incredibly wary woodpecker on the cap of an expedition member.

I admit that when I originally heard all the news about the rediscovery I was literally astonished and couldn't wait to see COLOR photos of the woodpecker that I had only seen in aging black and white film clips from the Kellogg, Tanner, et al. expedition as a teen so many years ago.

The evidence and the pseudo-science that followed appalled me. Your remarks on mediocre bits of evidence not being sufficient to take the place of one solid fact were very well made. Here I was expecting a National Geographic type expose' and I received evidence that wouldn't fly in Kansas. I have better proof that flying saucers visited McMinnville Oregon in the '50's than I do for IBWP's making it into the 21st Century.

To give credit where credit is due I predict that you will be the fellow that perservered in the face of BS from Cornell and some folks in Arkansas (who were instrumental in creating a tent revival movement that hasn't a shred of tangible evidence to back it up). I am pleased to say that I have communicated with a solid scientist who obviously wants IBWP's to be alive like any other naturalist. I expect that we would both be much more reserved regarding the matter if this information on a rediscovery were coming from near the Gulf of Mexico or off the Mississippi River.

You are doing a hell of a thankless job that is crucial to the heart of natural science. Mr. Hendershot seems to have his head screwed on straight too.

With appreciative respect for your efforts,

Phil

Phil Tongier is an amateur naturalist living in Salina, Kansas; his professional background is in psychology and law. A previous email from Phil is here.