Recently, I wrote about a 60 Minutes segment on the ivorybilled woodpecker.
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If that program showed the only solid evidence of the ivorybill’s existence, then that evidence is mighty thin. Connie Bruce of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology confirmed that I had indeed seen all there is to see, so far.
Look, nobody wants that bird to be in those bottoms more than I do. If the ivory-bill really lives in Arkansas, than it’s one of the greatest conservation stories of our lives. But if 60 Minutes showed the only proof there is, then excuse me for being at least skeptical. I’m not an expert birder by any definition, but when I saw the Luneau video, I thought the underside of the bird’s wings appeared to be those of a pileated woodpecker.
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During our conversation, I asked Connie Bruce if she truly believed in her heart that an ivorybill has been seen in Arkansas. She was initially evasive, and she tried to apply various contingencies to her answer. On the third attempt, I told her it was a yes-no question only. After a long, anxious pause, she said “yes,” and she sounded sincere.
I believe it, too.
How else can you explain all the time, money and effort that the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the Nature Conservancy are committing to confirm the bird’s existence? Why else would the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission stake so much of its scientific credibility on the tenuous possibility of the bird’s existence? They wouldn’t if they weren’t at least 90 percent sure the ivory-bill is there.
Either that, or they’ve all been taken in by the scam of the century, which is equally hard to believe. Scientists are so maddeningly cautious that they are reluctant to say the sun came up yesterday unless they have years of empirical data to prove it. They wouldn’t touch this if they didn’t honestly believe it’s true.
We just need some solid, indisputable evidence to erase all doubt.
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