An excerpt:
It's easy to imagine how many pileated woodpeckers (a more common species) might be subjected to undue harassment while the search is on. Putting a bounty on the ivory-billed birds might also prompt a flood of grainy, out-of-focus photos like the ones reputed to prove the existence of Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster.
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3 comments:
That excerpt is too hilarious to be unintentionally so.
"Knowledgeable bird watchers have no doubt been on the lookout for an ivory-billed woodpecker just for bragging rights, without any financial incentive at stake. So is it really wise to invite a bunch of untrained goofballs to start crashing through the woods in search of a quick 10 grand?"
The above statement is a directly out of the editorial. How can one in their right mind ever state that there was no "Financial Incentive" at stake in this matter before now? It has been about the $$$$ from the get go. Up until now, it has been run so that the only ones that could reap the rewards were a select few which are referred to as "Knowlagable Birders" in the article. If one was not included in this select group, then one must be part of the "Goofballs" it refers to latter?
As far as rewards go, this $10,000 reward is just an "Official" reward put up by those "Knowlagable" experts. There has been standing rewards in place from the beginning. At the very first meeting held in Brinkley for the public, there was a statement made that is anyone, addressing the public, could produce the location of nesting pair or roost hole, it could be worth 1 million dollars. That was from day one when big money was behind the issue. Now that the big money has begun to leave the cause, so has the interest & funding also begun to leave those who are running it & their cause.
This is a last hope effort to find what many have come to believe is most like not there. It has come to the point that they are now calling on the help of all the locals that have been locked out & told to keep out from the beginning. But as the editorial states clearly, they are "Goofballs"!!!!! One must remenber that these "Goofballs" know more about the area than anyone alive. They were the very ones that have lived inside these areas all their lives. If such a birds lives in the area, believe me, these "Goofballs" could find it with little trouble.
But what makes this issue so funny is this, What make them think that $10,000 will make the "Goofballs" find a bird now, when they could not produce one for a cool Million several years ago?
If the bird had been there, someone would have found it. But lets remember, this is not about any financial issues! So with that in mind, maybe one of these "Goofballs" might produce something for $10,000 in this "Official" reward that they could not produce for a cool
Million that was offered in the Un-Official offers made in the beginning!!!!!
The Caprinterio sees this whole "goofball" issue as a bigger kind of conservation conundrum.
Are the people who use the swamp as a place of work and relaxation? Goofballs or sages?
It has become fashionable for conservation groups to pay homage to "private landowners" and "local resource users" as if they are like the Crying Indian , noble and opressed by forces beyond their control - yet the true, and ultimate force for conservation.
TNC is particularly engrossed in this mythologizing and has arrived at this nonsensical appeal to bring forward people who have true knowledge of these woods and bayous almost by predestiny, since it is undoubtedly true that many of the TNCers honestly believe their own hype.
Since the totally out of touch search teams are mired in boot sucking mud, hopelessly ensnared in the greenbriar wearing body suits festooned 12 inch ribbons of torn camo cloth, and otherwise too busy trying to read their GPS's in the dark on the way to the morning sit to find these super skulky birds who likely in the 80% of the habitat that they have not covered with "transects" - we need to "reach out" or do "outreach" to the "locals".
I've showed it here before, and I'll show it again ... the locals are busy making double knocky sounds ...
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