We went into the Pearl River Swamp with the generous help and company of Mike Collins. The area was simply devastated by Hurricane Katrina... most large trees are on the ground. We kayaked up the Pearl River and into the swamp and I saw nothing that looked very promising, although habitat might be better in a few pockets deeper in.... not to say that they couldn't have been there or that they might not still be hanging on and trying to survive... but I'm not optimistic.
The bottom line is that we simply don't know and that the odds of there being Ivory-bills anywhere are rapidly fading as more and better search efforts come up empty-handed.
Monday, May 01, 2006
Comments from Jerome Jackson
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16 comments:
It seems to all boil down to this.
We all want IBWO's to be alive and kicking. But it seems a Church of the Holy IBWO has developed over the past 60 years. Just like Jesus rising from the Dead. Either you believe or you doubt and wish things could have happened differently back in the 1930's.
There continues to be absolutely no proof that a breeding pair of IBWOs exists anywhere in the USA. Yet 1000's of people believe this to be true.
So who are we to say Religion has no validity compared to science for surely religion will survive over Science when return to the Dark Ages.
Not true. Science survived religion during the orginal dark ages.
So based on history. Science is batting a 1000.
Jerome Jackson meets www.fishcrow.com!!!
Hell has frozen over.
Didn't science survive primarily in monasteries?
Checking in on today's Bird Forum net. Them boyz are tougher than we are on Tom N. and Professor Jackson. They are the True Believers.
Science survived as long as you didn't question Aristotle, which is to say, Science became a religion, maintained by organized religion. And who better to help us figure out what to believe or disbelieve? ;-) Even "true believer" or "hardened skeptic" are religions too. It probably comes down to neurochemistry.
Somewhere between willpower and wishpower, between visions and dreams is the agnostic. Perhaps the world is hardening into 2 camps
and the IBWO is a microcosm of that. Maybe Mr Jackson has a foot in both camps.
Paul Sutera
Them boys that are actually out looking to gather hard data on the presence or absence of the ivorybill in potential habitat all across the south ditched bird forum and all the other online flamefests months ago, the few that ever even went there. It's spring, fellers; shouldn't y'all be out looking at birds?
Somewhere between willpower and wishpower, between visions and dreams is the agnostic.
It can be easy to confuse waffling with wisdom.
Skepticism: "questioning the validity or authenticity of something purporting to be factual."
I'm a skeptic on this issue, and I'm not waffling until someone shows me a photo. That's not a hardened position, that's common sense.
Something called work and the almighty dollar keeps getting in the way.
Unless you want to give me some of your excess cash.
Man....it is fallout city here in South Texas, warblers, tanagers, Orioles...
Wish you all were here.
When this is all over, we should have a reunion. Yeah...a Skeptics reunion. Would that be great or what?
Makes sense to me.
Signed:
Moe from the Planet Sunev.
Planet Sunev? Good! Every reunion needs a theme.
The skeptics gathering should be some place where we can search for Ivory-bills. Wouldn't it be fan-freaking-tastic if Tom went out in a canoe in Bayou de View and came back with definitive video of IBWO? (actually, it would be even better if *I* came back with definitive video).
oh yeah, you know who else is meeting with Fishcrow this week???
Cornell. Someone asked about fishcrow at the Georgia Ornithological Society meeting (Ron Rohrbaugh was the speaker). Ron said fishcrow was going to be at Cornell this week to show his evidence.
I wonder how that will go.
Fitz meets the Fishcrow man!
What irony, what stupidity, what arrogance, what nievete!
What a fitting end to his career.
From here to fore, he shall be "Fitzcrow"
Blessed are those who raise the dead.
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