Birder's World has just published an excellent new article on the Ivory-bill controversy.
They asked five leading ornithologists for their views on Jerome Jackson's Auk commentary. (As far as I know, this is the first time that any of the five have publicly commented on the controversy).
Based on this article, I would classify four of the five ornithologists as skeptics.
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Here's an important part of the article:
Jackson's concerns about the evidence reflect what many ornithologists have been saying privately, according to conservationist and author Noel F. R. Snyder, although no one he's met dismisses the sightings outright...
He notes that past AOU president George Lowery proposed in his 1974 book Louisiana Birds [excerpted here] three conditions for a large woodpecker sighting to be considered a possible Ivory-bill:
Seeing the ivory-colored bill of the bird.
Hearing the bird give typical nasal yamp calls.
Seeing the extensive white on the bird's underwing produced mainly by the white secondary feathers.
"None of the Arkansas sightings fulfills all three criteria," says Snyder. "No one on the search team has evidently yet had a good look at the bill color of the bird(s) in question, and no one has seen a candidate Ivory-bill vocalizing. Also, Pileated Woodpeckers with white secondaries have been seen in the wild, so seeing a large woodpecker with white secondaries is hardly proof it is an Ivory-bill."
I would add that in none of Cornell's sightings, including the video, are even TWO of the three Lowery criteria met, and that includes the video.
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