...In April 2005 it was announced that the ivory-billed woodpecker, a bird thought for decades to have been extinct, had been rediscovered in the similar habitat of the adjoining Cache River National Wildlife Refuge to the north. Many believe it is only a matter of more thorough searching before the bird will be confirmed in the larger White River refuge, where automatic recording devices have already captured calls that may have been that of the ivory-billed.
Larry Mallard, manager of the White River refuge, appreciates the flurry of publicity and the hopes for a tourism boom that have accompanied the rediscovery, but he also believes caution should be exercised given the woodpecker’s tenuous-at-best existence within the state. "What happens,"Mallard asks, "if Elvis leaves the building?" He is using the codename given to the ivory-billed while scientists conducted a secretive search to confirm its presence.
"This refuge is a remarkable place and worth experiencing whether or not the ivory-billed is living in it," Mallard said. "Fishermen and hunters have known for many years how special the refuge is," he continued, "and now birders and others have become more interested in it."
Sunday, April 23, 2006
Backing away
An excerpt from this article (the bold font is mine):
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Cornell's Worried Image Makers Wrap Themselves in Ivy.
(from today's New York Times)
ITHACA, N.Y. — Cornell has been a member of the Ivy League for decades, but some of its students have Ivy envy.
So driven by a sense that Cornell is underappreciated, some of them banded together to form an "image committee," making it their mission to press the university into marketing and branding itself more aggressively, and to help it climb higher in college rankings.
So now people can ask graduates "Isn't Cornell the school that was part of the biggest conservation story of the last century?"
And I suppose the correct response will either be "depends" or "yes and no".
It's all coming together now as Cornell writes a new story, where the bird seen in 2004 was the last surviving individual of the species. The failure to come up with photos or recordings or even good sight records since is read as evidence that "Elvis" has meanwhile "left the building," and Cornell's efforts simply came too late to save the Ivory-bill. Compelling, more than slightly sad, and a graceful way out for everyone involved.
It's all horrible horrible science! The publication, the rebuttal to the rebuttal. Terrible, terrible science.
It all would make a great teaching study for science classes.
If I was fitz
I'd call it quitz
but who am I
to question why
a man so grand
would decide off-hand
to kill his career
gives me no cheer
For goodness sakes..everyone settle down! The Fitzpatrick et al. Science paper said there was at least one male IBWO in the Big Woods in 2004. Mallard from the wildlife refuge is enunciating the same caution that many folks here are urging. He's not running anywhere. He's just being as cautious as anyone in his position should be.
But their wasn't an IBWO in the Big Woods in 2004. That's what the evidence shows. It never happened. Why is science being ignored here?
Fitz was not cautious. He was extremely radical in his thinking. And he was wrong! He lost this argument. His paper is crap. And he's failed to support it with evidence.
Being cautious that ELVIS still exists is not being careful. It's being stupid.
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