The apparent rediscovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker in 2005 – hailed as one of the great conservation triumphs of recent times – may be merely a case of mistaken identity, according to a new study.
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"When I first heard the news, I was really excited," says Michael Patten, director of research at the University of Oklahoma's Sutton Avian Research Center in Bartlesville, US. "I went right to Science's website, and I was crestfallen. I was like, ‘Oh, my God. This is all they have’. I wanted them to be right, but it was pretty apparent right away that they sure don't have much here."
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But if there really are ivory-billed woodpeckers in the Arkansas woods, critics say, should searchers not have seen another by now? "They might not be visible on two or three trips or 50 hours of observation," says [Jerome] Jackson. "But now we're talking about thousands of hours by the Cornell people alone. In my opinion, we should have had something by now."
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Of course this all presumes Cornell is searching a breeding area and not just a visitors area frequented only in non-breeding season. I calculated in a previous post that 34 searchers searching the Big Woods are searching that 250 square miles. Probably not everyone searches every day and probably most folks pair up given the
cameras, tape recorders, lunch, raingear, etc. That's probably 12-15 square miles per person. With a call that can be heard for 1/4 mile, let's go with the conservative
number grid size of 12 square miles per person.
OK how many transects do
you need to search a grid of that size? Do them 1/4 mile apart and
that's about 50 transects of 12 miles a person. Or about 500 miles a person to make my guess more conservative. That's a single search! To search your square of the grid twice, that makes 1000 miles! If your bird doesn't breed
within the confines and the Big Woods is only a part of a wintering range - seems conceivable - then
You have to get real lucky to find it. Also you can throw in bad footing, bad weather, and the carrying kayaks around.
With 120 days of searching, that's covering 5 miles a day you can search your whole grid in a season.
One time. If your pair of purported IBWOs is nesting here, they'll be found. If they are mere winter visitors, you might well get unlucky
during your 500 miles of slogging.
And you need to get out there most days to search. I don't think you
are going to miss the birds if they are nesting within 250 square miles
but I'm not standing in a swamp at the moment. And I think some of
the searchers may not be searching the Big Woods, so your labor pool
gets thinned out if people are also
in the Cache or other places.
Which implies more than 500 person-searcher miles for one
complete search, without any second looks. But nesting birds should
be eventually obvious, and since the IBWOs wander more, that favors the searchers rather than hindering them. The question to me is whether
the Big Woods is a nesting area for
IBWOs or just a place near a nesting area. And just how far the search team of 34 people is being spread.
Paul Sutera, New Paltz, NY
That all makes for a good reason if it were all so!
Have you ever been to the location where the bird is suppose to habitate?
In the area where the "ONLY" so-called sightings have been made that have validated this deal, the "Big Woods" are only at most a mile wide, bordered on both sides by cleared, agri fields, free of trees. In places, one can see all the way from one side to the other! This area has been combed over time & time again by boat, on foot, with audio devices & hidden camera's. And last but not least, by a squadron of UltraLite aircraft buzzing above the tree tops of this vast area!
Now if we get outside this area in question, there is more area, but this is not where the bird was seen & filmed. The search in the area that gave us the confermation of this bird & has been the whole basis of this deal has produced nothing.
So where do we go now? Do we keep moving the search outward? Where do we stop? Do we keep moving down the basin until we get to the Gulf of Mexico? Do we go Eastward until we hit the Atlantic Ocean? What about Westward until we run completely out of trees?
When is enough, enough?
"If only it were so..."
It's still 250 square miles.
You can shape that in any way you like
and you will still come up with a similar amount of miles needing to be covered. Being riparian, it's a long
rather than a wide territory. In fact, it's 90 miles long. Some might argue that makes it harder.
But it is still going to take a season
to search 250 not-so-squarish miles
with 30+ people, one time.
And there are many wilderness areas far less well-searched.
Then you have the other southern
wilderness areas to search.
Your theory goes something like this. Since the proffered photographic, video and audio evidence obtained thusfar is bad,
the bird cannot truly exist. Visual
sightings by multiple experts can be discounted. There is no reason to
search for the bird anywhere.
The audio evidence doesn't match any known sonograms of Blue Jays but Blue Jays are known mimics. They could conceivably mimic anything
even if there are no known recordings matching IBWOs.
Furthermore, cageyness by Cornell
and some poorly crafted evidence like the 6-pixel blobs is proof that Cornell has accepted only BAD evidence as proof of the bird.
Therefore you conclude ALL evidence including visual anecdotal evidence is wrong but has been accepted.
In fact the lack of a photo after 60 years proves the bird is extinct to you. Other birds like the New Zealand Storm Petrel rediscovered after a hiatus of 150 years... the birds are too different and the
NZSP is nocturnal for 2 months though it flies over open ocean with no place to hide in view of many
pelagic boat tours.
If you are 100% convinced our bird no longer exists, then you don't have to search for it. And I don't think you really have to worry that
people will search until 2010 until they become convinced the bird is extinct. There are single wealthy individuals who make 5 times the amount of money being spent on the IBWO in their annual bonus alone.
If this proves to be a big waste of money, it's but a blip.
You can feel emotionally: "They have to have found it by now, they should stop searching". You could be right. And eventually you will
either be proven right, or proven wrong - by people searching for the bird.
Paul Sutera, New Paltz, NY
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