A final report on the 2005-06 ivory-bill search will be issued later this summer.Labor Day is fading in the rear-view mirror, my kids are back in school, and the NFL regular season has opened, yet still no final report has been issued.
What's going on here? Will we see that report before the autumnal equinox on Sept 23?
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I think that a previous commenter was right, that you can tell the people who are hucksters by whether they have their binoculars at half mast in their publicy photos.
Here is Madge herself, binoculars half raised, hosting Bobby, also has his bins raised
Less Than 22 days until the US Fish & Wildlife releases the 1st Draft of the IBWO recovery plan for Public Review. I've got my red pens handy.
(ref: http://www.fws.gov/ivorybill/timeline.html)
Not to be a snob, but did you notice that Bobby uses compacts. Field of view close to zero. Try to get on a flying bird with those. No wonder his (and Gallagher's) sketch had no head or tail.
Elliott Swarthout, from CLO and supervisor of fieldwork for the IBWO search in Arkansas is giving a talk at CLO on Sept 25th (just after the end of summer) on the continuing search for the IBWO.
I live close to Ithaca and hopefully will attend. I am a lab member and it is also open to the public. I have heard they got some interesting tidbits and more possible sightings this year. In any event, I am looking forward to it.
I don't think it is snobbery to point out that Bobby, and Madge a are couple of hucksters exploiting what they see as a "niche".
Theirs is a malignant strain of environmental oppourtunism - which in the end does more harm than good.
It holds that there is a "payoff" for those who maintain habitat for birds in the form of tourist dollars. It tacitly accepts that humans have no moral basis for conserving nature - or designing their environment so that it is not used up, destroyed or otherwise rendered no good.
It is curently fashionable to large conservation organizations with large budgets because it is as banal and inocuous as it is silly. Like labeling places on a map "IBA"s or making PIF lists, or "laying the groundwork for planning" it offends no one, it impinges on no destructive activity or behavior - it is exactly the kind of thinking that allows a bunch of conch bait fishermen to scrape up the last horseshoe crab out of delaware bay and thereby impreil an entire global ecosystem of shorebird migration.
It holds that something has happened if you work toward "awareness". In the end, to quote Wendell Berry , "A change of heart or of values without a practice is only another pointless luxury of a passively consumptive way of life".
The fact that bird tourism people have found a nexus with people who proport to represent the interests of a thought to be extinct woodpecker because of the uncontolable desire of legions of birders to add a notch to their life lists is the height of silliness.
"Theirs is a malignant strain of environmental opportunism...."
If there was ever a catch phrase that succinctly covered this saga, this is it.
It really can't be said better than that.
Also, I'd like to query a long ago issue. Whatever happened to the bullhockey spouted about a cabal of career destroying professionals that cowed "reliable" reports over the past 62 years?
And has no one seriously questioned the fact that we have ONE individual who is purported to have seen the supernaturally illusive IBWP 5 (FIVE) times?
At least the 2005-2006 report should be mercifully short.
Har.....
The BS continues.
I'm not even sure that their web site hucksters believe the crap anymore. Like Mr. MeThinks said, it's almost down to basic hucksterism.
Lost in Space it is.
Aye, I feel a new poem could be in the making for late September lads. I'm sure Van Remsen will find it quite interesting.
Bona Ditto
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