Next winter, says Fitzpatrick, the search is likely to be reduced, with more reliance on robotic cameras. If still unsuccessful, it may then be called off.On the other hand, if you believe Jay Harrod here, you might get the idea that the situation is rather rosy (the bold font is mine):
Jay Harrod, spokesman for the Nature Conservancy of Arkansas, said Thursday that he wasn't surprised by what Sibley and his team had to say.
"The scientific process would be broken if other scientists didn't come forward and question this," Harrod said.
"But we have found the bird," he said. "The video and all the evidence together prove that and we stand behind that."
Harrod said since November, they've had 10 additional sightings of the bird and 20 new sound recordings.
Who's right? In this particular case, my money is on Fitz.
Posts
2 comments:
"when the last individual of a race of living things breathes no more, another heaven and another earth must pass before such a one can be again."
—William Beebe
Fitz is just forcasting the inevitable. Whimper or bang? I vote it goes out with a whimper as far as the Scientists and good Birders are concerned. The true believers? I agree that they will continue to see Ivory-billed Woodpeckers for years.
Whimper or Bang
Well it now appears that for the principals the entire endavor started with a whim and led to a banker.
With no better photo evidence forthcoming, future generations will always consider the species to have gone extinct sometime in the 20th century and not the beginning of the 21st. That is they will see the 2005 announcment as signifying nothing.
Post a Comment