Henderson: "7,000 hunters in this same area"

Here's a very interesting snippet from this article:

In this [the search], too, hunters are allies, according to Scott Henderson, director of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.

"The deer hunter and the duck hunter out there are some of the best eyes and ears we‘ve got," Henderson said. "We have 7,000 hunters in this same area for eight hours at a time or more in some cases."

Using those estimates, that's 56,000 hours of coverage per day in the area. I think the odds are vanishingly low that the Ivory-bill could escape the notice of that crowd. (Remember, we're told that this bird was so spectacular that upon seeing one, people would drop to their knees and shout "Lord God")!

This fall in particular, given the massive Ivory-bill publicity, billboards, signage, etc, it's even more unlikely that an Ivory-bill could escape notice. I think it's very likely that there's been no living Ivory-bill in Arkansas since well before most of today's searchers were born.