...the standard should be no different IMHO for an out of range Northern Cardinal than for a supposedly extinct Eskimo Curlew (or supposedly extirpated Ivory-billed Woodpecker). Else, we can always be raising the standards and, those who care little for habitat, can always appeal to a higher standard.Personally, I care very much for habitat, but it doesn't follow that I must then accept flimsy evidence as proof of living Ivory-bills.
...If that proof be scaling that can be shown to have been created by a bird with dimensions that can not be the Pileated, so be it.Of course, the accepted authorities do not concur; that popular misconception should erode significantly in the next few months.
...If the accepted authorities concur, as I believe they have in Arkansas, that the bird is there, why do we need more?
"HASnyder" has been providing some calm, clearly expressed skepticism on BirdForum in recent days. I wonder how long the moderators will allow this to go on...
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The skeptic in me says that birds headed at warp speed towards extinction tend to go extinct.
We have pretty good evidence with previous bird species that hit low numbers of 20-30 birds, and then became extinct. Sure the other species had other reasons. Passenger Pigeon may have needed big flocks as did probably the Eskimo Curlew. The Condor with numbers of 100 in the early 20s
and a lifespan of 36 years was headed in the same direction until
humans intervened. Nowhere do we see bird species getting under 100 birds and surviving long without elaborate interventions. The whole
crux of belief is that somewhere a
never-visited swamp or 2 existed that supported a remnant population
in the almost near total absence
of other suitable old-growth swamp habitat. These birds were never
photographed (save for a controversial photo from the 70s).
Did the birds survive into the 1950s? That's quite possible but remember, the IBW has a lifespan
almost identical to any songbird
of about 10 years maximum and usually much much less than that.
Here we have a bird that barely
prospered except in extremely specific habitats. A bird whose
numbers were in a death spiral
and was nearly extinct already 100 years ago. I would like to see a geographic survey of what old-growth swamp forest still existed in the southern USA within
the historical range of the bird
after WWII. Something is needed here to explain how the IBW was the unusual exception in the ranks of extinct bird species. These
secret, unvisited, never-dry swamps
of original old growth forest
big enough to keep the remnant population above 20 individuals to prevent inbreeding. Yet small enough to escape serious detection.
Maybe John Dennis' 1968 sighting in the Big Thicket of Texas is quite credible (no photo exists).
But that was 20+ years after 1944,
but more than 38 years before the present. The remnant impenetrable swamp theory is something that could perhaps be debunked. Why was the Singer Tract and adjacent lands referred to as the very last of the old growth Southern forests?
Were they exaggerating when they said that? Did the remnant birds that may have survived past 1944,
did they fly hundreds of miles until they looked down and saw another scrap of Southern old-growth forest? One has to get beyond a lot of ecstatic hope and
look at the evidence in a dry light. Panic and also irrational exuberance...they all come from the same place in the human psyche. If I believed anything, I would believe that if the bird exists, it's because 1-3 families
of reproducing pairs managed to continue just barely reproducing themselves yet never getting beyond their current numbers of
9-10 birds and not interbreeding.
Experts say this is impossible.
And you couldn't hide 50 of these
loud large birds in the South without getting a photo at some point. At this point I'd almost rather see money spent conserving the Cerulean Warbler or other species that are struggling but
extant. Anyone know about the swamp forests that remained in the 1950s that survived after the Singer Tract was leveled? I'm really interested in this kind of information. Is there such a thing as a never-visited, never dry swamp full of old Cypress, sweetgum and Oak? If this didn't exist in the 50s, where did the bird manage to reproduce and yet
go undetected? Thanks for listening! /Paul New Paltz, NY
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