WorldTwitch turns up the heat

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Since the publication of Jerome Jackson's article in January, skepticism has been spreading down from the top. When the subject comes up at bird club meetings, the most respected birders are dismissing the Arkansas Ivorybill as a mistake or a hoax. When others see the leading birders in agreement, the conversation turns from how to see an Ivorybill to what can be done to set the record straight. The same thing will be happening at rare bird stakeouts and on pelagic trips. What must have seemed like a brilliant coup for the Cornell Lab is rapidly turning into a nightmare...
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The chances of encountering an Ivory-billed Woodpecker in the vicinity of the 2004 sightings would be minuscule even if it actually existed. Moreover, birders have always been much more skeptical of the Arkansas Ivorybill claim than Science magazine or the mainstream media. They know that dudes and stringers "see" Ivorybills regularly throughout the U.S., and that the media made similar claims about the obviously bogus "sightings" in the Pearl River area of Southeastern Louisiana. If some established expert birder were to report seeing an Ivory-billed Woodpecker, twitchers around the world would be checking airline schedules to Little Rock. But expert birders never see Ivory-billed Woodpeckers. [Non-birders reading this need to understand that birding expertise bears no relation to academic accomplishments, publications, or professional appointments. One doesn't become a great birder by taking classes, passing exams, or writing books and articles. Some of the world's finest birders never took a course in biology and certainly would not put up with the mind-numbing drudgery and anti-scientific political correctness prevalent in modern academia.]