Ivory-billed Woodpecker/Grand Prairie complaint

Here's a small new article about the Grand Prairie Irrigation Project and the ivory-bill. Here's part of the article:

LITTLE ROCK — Two environmental groups asked a federal judge Friday to halt the Grand Prairie Irrigation Project, claiming that two federal agencies didn't take a close enough look at the project's possible effect on the recently rediscovered ivory-billed woodpecker.

The National Wildlife Federation and the Arkansas Wildlife Federation have used the bird before as an argument for stopping the project, a plan to use water from the White River to irrigate farms in eastern Arkansas.

This complaint is on the NWF website. I found this part interesting:

25. On August 2, 2005, FWS acknowledged in the New York Times that experts had detected several ivory bills in the White River National Wildlife Refuge, in addition to the bird that had been detected in the Cache River refuge in 2004. These birds’ existence was confirmed with sound recordings made over many months.

(I added the bold font above).

The story behind the Luneau video

Cornell has posted the story behind the Luneau video. Here's a snippet:

Luneau said, "I was not completely convinced that this woodpecker was an ivory-bill until March 17, 2005, when John Fitzpatrick, Martjan Lammertink, Tim Gallagher, Ron Rohrbaugh, and I together made measurements of the bird [recorded on video] as it began to fly from the side of the tree. It became clear to me at that time that we had proof that the bird was too big for a pileated."

Ok, Luneau says he was not completely convinced, even nearly a year after he shot his video. Remember, Marc Dantzker "sharpened up" the video in May of 2004. In contrast with Luneau's statement, Tim Gallagher wrote that afterwards "Everyone who was familiar with what an ivory-billed woodpecker looks like seemed utterly convinced that this was the real thing." (from The Grail Bird, page 225).

On the previous page, Gallagher also says "In the blown-up film, I could see what appeared to be a large bird with a black-crested head and a white bill peering out from behind a tupelo." I don't know anyone else who admits to seeing either of those two features.

Of course, I'm skeptical of the size measurement that convinced Luneau. My analysis is here. Of course, the public skeptics must also be unconvinced by Cornell's size measurement.

Video of AOU Ivory-bill presentations now online

Videos of Ivory-bill presentations given at the recent AOU meeting are now available on the CLO website.

The "awesome PR machine"

A skeptical ornithologist referred to it as "the awesome PR machine".

The PR is quite impressive--you've got Cornell team members making large numbers of personal appearances; they're also on TV and radio. You've got "The Grail Bird", you've got web sites, you've got fawning articles. You've also got press releases and tour hype. Throughout it all, a drumbeat message is "the Ivory-bill rediscovery is dead solid confirmed".

The public may be largely unaware that beneath the surface, there is a raging scientific debate. Because people desperately want to "believe", there is an undeniable stigma attached to expressions of skepticism, and because of that stigma, almost all skeptics have been publicly silent.

Right now, what does the public see that balances the "believer" PR machine? Not much. No TV, no radio, no books, no press releases, no personal appearances. You've got some skeptical comments in a few articles, you've got some skepticism on the internet, and that's about it.

Overall, the public perception on the "rediscovery" is still heavily influenced by emotion and PR, and lightly influenced by facts and logic. Over the next year, I think that facts and logic will begin to prevail.

New skeptical article from Don Hendershot

Obviously, I think this article makes a lot of sense:

Since that time I have kept up with the ivory-billed saga through the Internet. I have discovered a very well reasoned blog questioning the rediscovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker. The blog is maintained by a Minnesota birder named Tom Nelson. Nelson asks simple but pertinent questions regarding the first ivory-billed quest and points out plausible – non-ivory-billed – explanations for much of the “proof” posited by the ivory-billed team. You can access the blog at http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/.

Don Hendershot has previously written on this subject here and here.

Poor quality of Luneau video--a plus?

Here's an unusual defense of the Luneau video:

The [Luneau] film left no doubt. "It's not a clear, beautiful photo," Stotz said. "But when someone provides a clear, beautiful photo, people say, 'That's a fake.' Nobody would fake something this poor in quality."

(As always, unless otherwise indicated, I've added the bold font.)

A slippery slope?

To me, this sentence from this recent article represents some over-the-top spin:

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The Cornell experts have not completely ruled out the possibility—albeit slim—that the calls were those of jays, seen in the area where the sounds were retrieved.
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People have been hearing tantalizing kent-like calls in the US, over and over, for 60+ years. In zero percent of those cases, an Ivory-bill has subsequently been found in the area. In 100% of those cases, when the source of the sound was positively identified, it was something other than an Ivory-bill.

So now Cornell has recorded some more kent-like calls (rumor has it, these calls may have been recorded 50 or more miles away from the area of the "robust sightings"). They've searched the area, and no Ivory-bill has been found. In the area, they have observed jays uttering long sequences of nasal tooting calls that sound like Ivory-billed Woodpeckers. On the recordings, Blue Jay sounds are heard within 5 minutes of the kent-like calls. Blue Jay recordings in their own collection appear to be a good match for the "mystery sounds".

If Cornell was to spin the possibility as "slim" that the calls were those of jays, I'd say they were headed down the slippery slope toward prevarication.

Pileated double-knocks

This information is from an anonymous source:

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The Pileated Woodpecker does give a double-knock. This behavior has been known for many years; for example, here's a snippet from Short's 1982 monograph (p. 419) regarding "demonstration tapping" in the Pileated [my comments in brackets]:

"This form may occur as a double tap, akin to the drum taps that are characteristic of various species of Campephilus; such a double tap may be associated with copulation or may occur at a prospective nest site (Kilham, 1959d, p. 381). Such demonstration tapping is known in D. javensis and D. martius [a reference to the congeneric White-bellied and Black Woodpeckers]. Drumming takes place all year, but especially marks the prebreeding period, for example, in December and January [when CLO's ARU cuts were obtained] in Maryland (Kilham, 1959d). Bent (1939, p. 175) cites Sutton as indicating that a drumming burst may be followed by three distinct blows, thus resembling drum taps of Campephilus, but Hoyt (1957) did not thi[nk] these are typical, nor do I."

Cornell has a Pileated Woodpecker recording that is a clear double knock, indistinguishable to expert ears from a Campephilus. Nothing in the ARU cuts eliminates PIWO or, for that matter, a Red-bellied Woodpecker or Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, both of which "double knock" as well.
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Again, if you collect 17,000 hours of audio data in an area containing Pileateds but no Ivory-bills, you should expect to hear a lot of double-raps.

Here's a previous post on the topic.

Associated Press mentions the skeptics

This short AP article mentions the ivory-bill skeptics.

Here's a snippet:
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Skeptics remain, however, with Internet bloggers contending Cornell researchers probably spotted an abnormal version of the pileated woodpecker.
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"Town ready to cash in on birders"

Here's another article from Syracuse.com.

Here are some snippets, with my comments in red:

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It doesn't take a lot of high-powered economic analysis to see why Mallard Pointe Lodge in Brinkley, Ark., doesn't cater to duck hunters the way it used to.

The ivory-billed woodpecker was spotted just a quarter-mile away from the 3,000-acre spread where Mallard Pointe, originally a duck hunting club, provided guides, dogs and open bars for hunters.

"We've set most of that aside and we have gone full force into bird watching," said manager Butch Turner.

I'm not sure that's a good move at this point.

The lodge finished a 10,000-square-foot addition last month that more than doubled its capacity. It signed up the biggest name in birding these days - Gene Sparling, the naturalist who first saw the ivory-bill in February 2004 - to lead some of its tours. Bird-watching packages for a seven-night stay cost $2,295 per person.
...
"They [birders] don't stay in tents when they travel," state tourism Director Joe David Rice was quoted in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. "They stay in fine hotels, drink wine and eat expensive meals."

Maybe some birders fit the Thurston Howell III demographic, but I don't know any of them. I do know a lot of birders that sleep in cheap motels or tents (or their cars).
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"We are on a very cold trail right now"

You should read this entire article at Syracuse.com.

Here are a few snippets, with my comments in red:
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"It's frustrating, because we are on a very cold trail right now," said Ken Rosenberg, the lab's director of conservation science.
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The skeptics withdrew the paper and said they were convinced the ivory-bill existed, after the Cornell lab sent them audio recordings that captured the bird's calls and knocks.

Inexplicably, Prum and Robbins did say they were convinced by the audio. Jackson remains publicly unconvinced.

Not everyone is convinced, and the debate continues on the Internet. One blogger, who identifies himself as an "avid Minnesota birder," maintains a Web site called "the ivory-bill skeptic" and contends the searchers probably spotted an abnormal version of the pileated woodpecker.

"I think the search team is so committed to their 'Ivory-bill' discovery that they can't be expected to do true objective, cold-hearted analysis of the evidence any longer," the anonymous skeptic said. "I think they've invested so much work and time into this project that expecting them to step back, take a fresh look and ask 'Could this really all be a mistake?' is asking way too much."

He's wise to remain anonymous. If he published his real name and email address, he'd probably be subject to some personal attacks these days. You certainly don't want your name attached to ideas that may be logical but unpopular.

Cornell ornithologists figure a systematic, strategic search is the best response.
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This year's search, funded by $800,000 in private donations...

The article also says that last year's search cost was similar. If so, we're talking about $1.6 million spent on search costs alone. At some point, it may make sense to ask whether that money could be better spent on things like protecting habitat for birds that are known to exist.

Sleuthing for clues to a rare bird's existence turns out to be tough on morale.

"The work itself, on a day-to-day basis, is quite tedious," Rosenberg said. "It seems exciting, but what you're doing is sitting on a log, swatting mosquitoes and trying to stay awake."...

"What's going to happen if we go five years and never see the bird?" Rosenberg asked. "It could fade from the spotlight and become a chapter in the crazy history of the ivory-billed woodpecker."
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