An excerpt:
Officials from The Nature Conservancy and the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission announced a proposal Tuesday that would give a $10,000 reward to anyone who provides information that leads biologists to an ivory-billed woodpecker's nest, roost cavity or feeding site.
Update: another article is here (subscription may be required).
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23 comments:
Well now I'm sorry I ever brought this up.
Sincerely,
Piltdown
Methinks they have been monitoring this blog, and have taken methinks up on her idea. (I'm not methinks, methinks).
Next will see a post here: http://www.parishilton.com/
offering one night of videotaped pleasure to the person that gets the video.
Hey, I just remembered, they offered the volunteers a free trip on any TNC International trip if they got a picture/video. Seems like they ratcheted it up for the general public.
OK. So it is one thing for the Skeptico to want to post a prize - cause it may help reviewing records etc etc. But, Methinks that we can gleen a few things from the Great State of Arkansas and the The Greatest Conservation Organization in The World offering a reward for confirmation of the IBWO.
First, they must have NOTHING left in their bag of pixellated double-knocky tricks, cause they'd look really bad if they came forward and claimed their own Prize. Not that they are above it, but it would look lame.
Next, OH To Be A Fly On The Wall when CLO got wind of this one! The fur must have been flying cause it is not a big leap to think, well, that their record is bogus - which is why we need another one!
And Third - that those bleedin' thieves stole another perfectly good Skeptico idea and are hatching it as their own. Now they will review the record, rather than anyone, well, with less to lose.
The only good thing is that they need a roost hole or something concrete at the end of the trail. Otherwise, I'm sure David or Bobby or Tim or Ken or blah blah blah would treat us to another unidentifiable three second flap-rate manipulated pixellated wooden-winged deinterlaced piece of tape.
It is funny that they are only giving 10k to find an IBWO - they spent more than 10M to develop habitat and search for the extinct bird, and now you'd expect the value of the bird would go UP - say, you'd get a whole County or maybe a share in the UA Football Team or something. But no. 10k. Jeepers, lots of people would pay more than 10k to be led to a Spoon-billed Sandpiper in the US - and their is actually a chance of that happening.
It makes me think of when Doctor Evil holds the world hostage for "One Million Dollars".
The safest bet in history. The donor can use those same monies for bigfoot, aliens, and Elvis.
It's a four-fer.
I was thinking of donating my allowance to the IBWO bounty, but I decided to put it aside for the IBWO whistle-blower legal defense fund instead.
You know that none of this would have gone anywhere if RemFitzsenPatrick hadn't declared certain sightings (Kulivan, Sparling, and the dynamic duo) as "undeniably credible." Otherwise, IBWO would have continued to be "presumed extinct."
Some other random thoughts:
Yes, Fishcrow, your IBWO video IS just as good as the Luneau video, which means that it's similarly crappy video of a Pileated.
Regarding these new flight videos of PIWOs that suddenly look remarkably similar to the Luneau video, it was previously pointed out multiple times on this blog that all you have to do is view Cornell's very own comparative PIWO videos (that they tell you look SOOO different), to see how similar they are to the Luneau video. We don't need keep re-inventing the wheel on this one- it's already a reverse slam dunk.
And, regarding the discussion under the "if only they had shotguns" theme, I would re-emphasize that Luneau's brother in law in the front of the canoe clearly never saw the bird. In the unedited video, you can see most of Mr. Henderson for the duration of the video and he does NOT react at all when the bird flushes- he misses it completely. It doesn't seem that Luneau sees the bird either until it's way out in the forest, and when he ask's Henderson "did you see that," Henderson goes"huh?" So, Henderson lied when he said that he saw the bird (see NAB article detailing all the sightings), and he compounds the lie if he said that he saw red in the crest. And Luneau is lying if he gets defensive and says that Henderson definitely saw the bird. In "Grail Bird," Gallagher tells us how Luneau steered the canoe so that the video would pick up the bird, which is also total BS becasue he obviously is unaware of the bird the the canoe is only accidentally in the right position.
My hypothesis is that Henderson was later kidnapped, taken to the safehouse in Brinkley, and tortured until he swore that he saw the bird. Which is another reason why we skeptics want to remain anonymous....
More random thoughts later,
Super Anonymous
(I'm not methinks, methinks).
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Mr. Methinks now has a double; kinda an inverted compliment.
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Also, what does "Piltdown" refer to?
He didn't see the bird. Then he kinda saw the bird. Then he saw the bird, the red crest, and gobs of white.
Talk about nerves of steel! That fellow in the front sees the greatest rediscovery in the last 1000 years and hardly flinches. I also wondered what the fellow said in response to Luneau asking him if he saw "it". Is it "huh?" or "nah"?
Anyway, it's exactly "The Road to Fraud" that Tom posted about. The lazy road eventually becomes an ice-packed chute that you can't get off of. And at the bottom is deceipt and lies and baby-killing and torture and....oh, sorry, I flashed back to Iraq for a minute...
Piltdown is the handle of a person over on Birdform dot Net. Or I as like to call it, Birdforum Without a Net.
Just to reserve my spot in line, I am now officially stating for the record that I have "substantive" evidence that the Ivory Bill exists in one of these state, Texas, Ark, La, Ms, AL, Carolina(both), IL, Tn, and any other southern/midwestern/eastern state that I may or may not have missed.
I hereby formally make claim to the $10,000. I must remain anonymous to protect my heirs.
P.S.- oh, and I would like to add the state of lala land just to cover all bases.
I am dying for someone with some rudimentary photoshop skills (that leaves me out) to put a beer or crack pipe in that hand of the dude in the front of the canoe. Maybe whoever that IBWO in Fitzcrow's moustache could do it for us.
Methinks1 also want to hear the audio for that tape for the 15 minutes before the "sighting" and 15 minutes after.
Did you ever hear/see the whole tape, Super Anon?
I personally will give $5000 to the first human to present the world with a living or accidentally but freshly killed IBWO.
I must say that it doesn't take nerves of steel to not react. Look back at the Challenger disaster and the faces of the relatives of the astronauts. Do they react in horor as they're loved ones are OBVIOUSLY blown up? No, they hardly react at all.
I proposed this one to some other conservation professionals as soon as I heard about the "rediscovery" but it didn't go anywhere at the time. $10,000 reward is a much cheaper and more effective use of resources than $1 million. Put up Wanted Alive posters all over the south and see what comes up. I'd make it $25K though. Give folks a reason to get out there and find the birds--there's enough folks that could really use a $25K boost
No, I haven't seen the whole video, just the 20-30 seconds before and through the "large woodpecker." I somehow doubt that anyone but Luneau and maybe a few of the head vampires have seen the whole thing.
SuperAnon
Calling Rick Prum...Calling Jerry Jackson....Calling Sibley et al.
Fellas - Get that whole videotape. I'll betcha there is some interesting footage, esp. after the "encounter".
Methinks it will be witheld though.
FYI:
In the early 70s Hal Owens offered $1000 for info on the bird in the Big Thicket. Guess the result? Zippo, Zilch, Zero, Nada.
Now we're up to 10k, by 2030, it'll be $100,000, by 2060 $1,000,000 (and then it will be cloned).
Well, now that a few days have passed, I would like to reconsider. I'm thrilled I brought up the ides, and must have chanelled it from the Nelson Blog. It is Manna From Freakin Heaven!
Sincerely,
Piltdownwoman
curunir said:
I must say that it doesn't take nerves of steel to not react. Look back at the Challenger disaster and the faces of the relatives of the astronauts. Do they react in horor as they're loved ones are OBVIOUSLY blown up? No, they hardly react at all.
1:01 PM, June 21, 2006
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Shock is very different from excitement. The analogy doesn't hold for me.
The dude doesn't react because he doesn't see it - he doesn't see the bird. He makes-up the whole story. He is not some Ninja type guy trained to "not react" - he doesn't see it.
Not only does he not see it. But the guy has the look on his face like, "is it lunch yet?"
I hate conspiracy theories but it is starting to look a lot like fraud. Is it a case like Bush you believe it so change the facts to fit the story. Or is it a Cheney scenario belief and facts were never part of the equation Dick wanted it done for whatever Dick reasons.
BTW:
Is CLO that stupid to think they wouldn't get caught? That part doesn't make sense to me.
I agree. What about all the IBWO sightings that resulted in crying?
Not too late for this "sighting" to result in some crying ...
10,000 what a joke. A farmer, timber company, duck hunting club, or even the core of engineers working on an the Grand Prairie irrigation project would pay more than 10,000 dollars if some one could shoot this elusive bird.
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