One snippet:
ARCATA -- The ivory-billed woodpecker seen in an Arkansas swamp in 2004 is no Lazarus of endangered species, said an ornithologist leading the effort to rediscover the bird, or at least not until a mate is sighted.
John Fitzpatrick, the director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, said in an interview Friday that no information gathered since then has shown the bird may be a lone woodpecker.
”This is moot if we found a stray bird flying around at the end of its breeding life,” Fitzpatrick said.
If it were, it would be the last of its species, and turn a story of great hope and resilience back into a story of extinction.
Still, the team of 30 ornithologists are still scouring thousands of square miles old woods in the area. They are looking for a female bird that could provide hope for the species' future. They are also listening with remote devices, recording bird calls and trying to differentiate the ivory-billed woodpecker's call from that of jays'.
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23 comments:
This is just like the Cold Fusion episode. When the major players start finally talking and trying to justify all the hype, they will just sound worse and worse.
Listen to Fitz from now on. You will learn how little or how much he really knows about birds in the coming month or so. And about science for that matter.
Does he declare this whole episode a probable mistake, a "probable misidentification", or does he hold to the last IBWO in the universe scenario?
I'm really starting to think that Fitz is going to pull this off.
First he is all over the airwaves with the "greatest discovery of all time"
Then he just ignores the blogosphere guys like tom nelson and then when Sibley calls bullshit on the lunneau pixel bird he says that Sibley doesn't know jack about birds and plays the press for a "this is complicated scientific debate". ... and the only member of the media to call him on the folly is a Appy latchan columnist in the Smokey's ....
Then he visits the Redwood Coast and opines that that all this is "moot" ... since they have to be dealing with a bird "wandering" at the end of "its breeding life" not "Lazarus".
Fitz, my chapeau is off to you. Who would have thought to turn the "lord god bird" into an impotent, moot issue, at the end of its breeding life! Brilliant!
All the viagra in the world can't help this poor toothless geezer bird. Besides there is nothing here to talk about!!
Oh, had Kerry had you when he was swift boated. That might have saved the world.
John Fitzpatrick, the director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, said in an interview Friday that no information gathered since then has shown the bird may be a lone woodpecker.
”This is moot if we found a stray bird flying around at the end of its breeding life,” Fitzpatrick said.
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Can somebody explain what that first sentence by Fitz actually means?
It means his career is coming to an end and it's demise is beginning to get him down.
Either that or it's just the continuation of his science papers, more gobblety gook.
Lets guess that the evidence collected since then doesn't support the lone woodpecker hypothesis because they have collected no evidence...therefor, ipso facto, there are no woodpeckers, not a lone woodpecker.
Or it may be that the bird is a metaphore for their careers.
But, to the chapeau doffer, I too must agree that this guy is very good. His firm grounding in suggestion, without ever actually concluding anything, is Rumsfeldian (never really commit to anything) and Clintonian (tell you what you wanna hear) with just a dash of snake-oil huckster tossed in for good measure.
This is why the first sentence from the Arcata article is so good.
The snake-oil huckster always had the safe option of moving on to another town when folks got tired of him.
Where is Fitz going? These things follow your career forever. Science can be a cutthroat business. Certainly Fitz has played it that way often enough.
Only a matter of time before the chuckles behind his back turn into snide remarks in front of him.
Or maybe it's a typo...
He has turned the corner, the IBWO is scrubbed from his CV, his talks are on the "major themes" of what birds "mean" to conservation.
Canary in the coal mine writ large.
The press has moved on. Sibley said what he had to say but he is genuinely contrite because of the essential goodness of Fitz's message and the basic goodness of the hope that the IBWO does haunt the deepest southern swamps. To deny this hope is to deny the very "cause" of conservation itself.
Fitz's career isn't over at all. They saw an IBWO, it was published, perhaps the video is bad but TWO competent observers SAW the bird.
Case closed.
The residue of the whole thing can be summarized with this one photo ... this is how small this is folks ... just some memorabilia in a small town in rural america just off an interstate somewhere. Why it would take about 20 min. to make it seem like this never happened at all.
It was over when James Gorman responded to Sibley's paper by taking the subway up to the museum of Natural History in and "chatting" with the curator.
The story was as dead as the specimen he was holding.
I think it is time to shut down the Skeptic Blog.
Fitz has moved on and so should "we" ...
Anon wrote:
Fitz's career isn't over at all. They saw an IBWO, it was published, perhaps the video is bad but TWO competent observers SAW the bird.
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Ah, we return to the original problem. Over the last 50 years there are lots of people who say they saw the IBWO, including Gallagher and Harrison (nice guys, but how about that new Harrison video of a PIWO he is hawking as a IBWO!). The original video is what was supposed to clinch the deal, and move this from the realm of the suspected to the confirmed.
Having two observers, who didn't see more than 1 field mark, and somehow saw it while the third member of the group was scouting ahead, reeks of a stingy sighting. The bird was not refound, further clinching the stringiness (we've all chased stringy birds before). It continues to not be refound, because it wasn't there in the first place!
While these guys silently slip away paying homage to their lone-bird hypothesis (which we should let them do just to get rid of them) there will be others who will have to pick up the pieces, tidy up the records, and bring some truth back into the history of this critters demise. Which is why when ....
Anon writes:
I think it is time to shut down the Skeptic Blog
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...I hope that it everyone sees that the work is only just beginning.
Thank you gentlemen (is there a woman blogger out there?)
So it's a:
a) typo
b) gobbly gook
c) time to shut down the IBWO Skeptic Website because CLO/Fitz after raising zillions of dollars/publicity is already moving on because the Last of the Mohicans were spotted in Uncasville,CT.
It does seem like we are beating up on a really dead horse. In the end, just a very sad story coming to an agonizing end.
Of course, Fitz will not quit because there is no ccountablility in Government or the Academic World.
oh man, you folks discard how mean science and scientists really are. I guarantee you that the comments and wisecracks have already started about Fitz. And when he takes that snooty attitude that Fitz often takes with "lesser mortals", I can just hear the retorts of "yeah, but I'm not the one that saw the Pileated....I mean....last remaining Ivory bill in the universe..." Mr. Fitzpatrick!
Oh yes, scientists are very very mean.
But this is the point, Fitz has to weather some private "meanness" on the part of science.
That is it.
The media is done with the story.
They aren't going to pick apart frame 33.3 anymore.
Of course Fitz never came up with "proof", of course his original paper in Science was a crock, of course sibley is right.
But that isn't what the press sees.
The press looked and the press ran the story of a legitimate difference of opinion on what is in the video.
It has been fun but is it over. There will be no moment of accountability. We had it and cornell gets a pass.
A bird wandering at the end of its life.
You all are way off the mark on Fitz. Fitz is a top-notch and cautious scientist, a dedicated conservationist and has done much to advance the the knowledge and conservation of birds around the world.
I'd put his skills, accomplishments and future up against any of the detractors'...anyday.
How can you put Fitz's accomplishments up against his detractors?
His detractors didn't come up with the biggest ornithological OOPS of all time. Or one of the biggest science boondoggles of all time. So I'd say his detractors are right. Therefore, they are better than him. That's clearly logical.
As for the press, Fitz could care less about them than his reputattion. I mean just listen to the bird conference chats that have been taking place just this month alone. His rep is toast.
Scientists are unforgiving bastardss in that way.
I am convinced that the Arkansas bird is not the "last of its species". After 1944 there have been sightings in different states, sound records and even photos. The destruction of the Singer Tract didn't cause the remaining birds to drop dead from the sky. They simply wandered to the next best habitat that met their requirements.
Michael
The odds that those clowns saw the last IBWO in the universe are astronomical. Every true scientist knows that. You will have to come up with a better theory than that!
Such as...they didn't see an IBWO? How about that simple elegant theory? Why is the simple theory so easily rejected by these dunderheads!
Marcus Benkarkis said...
Thank you gentlemen (is there a woman blogger out there?)
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Yeah, I'd bet.
Anonymous said...
You all are way off the mark on Fitz. Fitz is a top-notch and cautious scientist, a dedicated conservationist and has done much to advance the the knowledge and conservation of birds around the world.
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Yeah, but he got this one way wrong.
Anonymous said...
I'd put his skills, accomplishments and future up against any of the detractors'...anyday.
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Why?
It isn't right to call the skeptics his detractors - this should be a discussion of the evidence, not a discussion of personalities. The numbers of skeptics, and skill level of those professing that the video bird is a PIWO are an avalanch atop CLO's supporters. This isn't personal, it is evidence driven.
There are no new high-end (I mean bird ID professionals, or career scientists) converts to the IBWO side, and the list of non-believers is impressive. CLO was wrong on this.
As to his future, I don't know why we bother to speculate. It was just as easy for CLO to come out last year with a slightly less white-knucked statement, and have given themselves room to back out gracefully. They still could have had a great press conference with a position of - "it looks like we may have found IBWO, but we need more time to be sure. Please give us the space to do so" position.
I guess the Gail Norton (who, oddly, didn't mention the IBWO as a success of her tenure in her closing statements) presence demanded certainty, but that is where they went wrong, and why they are in the awful position they are in today. They didn't consult enough outside opinions (Jackson comes to mind, Kaufman might have been a fabulous idea, Steve Howell and Peter Pyle come to mind), spoke with too much certainty, and only have one exit strategy - FIND MORE BIRDS.
If that sort of mentality continues to dominate their positioning, their future seems bleak.
One last thing...where has T.B. gone?
There was no "next best habitat"
after the Singer Tract was cut.
That was the last bit of habitat
suitable to the continued existence
of the Ivory-bill. The remaining individuals died within a few years
of the destruction of that forest and the species was certainly
extinct by the early 50's.
TB is here
But he does fear
That ten pair
May not be fair
My new prediction
My predeliction
is for seven
(I hope to heaven)
Fitz is peeved
Something's up his sleeve.
May 10
Till then.
Signed,
The TB
Yes - there are women who read this
We are looking for some women here at the skeptic blog who have fathers who will loan us their private jet. Does your daddy have a jet?
Can we borrow it to go look for Ivorybills or to further flog the dead horse of 33.3? Maybe fly james gorman to a photoshop class so he can see what magic Fitz et al. worked with Science paper???
Please.
Fitz et. al. get to fly on donated private jets, how come not the skeptics?
We look down our noses at people who drive hummers, but if you'll loan us a jet we won't peep about the gas mileage.
To fly from Ithaca to Brinkley on a mid size gulfstream only takes about 750 gal of gas ... this is easily offset by all the CLO folks who walk or bike to work.
Please loan us your jet so Tom Nelson can fly to NYC to talk to James Gorman ... mano y mano.
The Skeptic blog depends on it.
Dear Anon,
Honey, If me or my Daddy had a private jet I'd let you on anytime. We could paint it to look like an ivorybill!
Alas, all I have to offer is that I could lend Tom my Prius to go to New York.
Cheers,
One of The Girls
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