Over the last couple of days, traffic has been unusually heavy on this blog. Many readers seem to be repeatedly checking the comment section.
Hits from domains like uwindsor.ca, auburn.edu, cornell.edu, and fws.gov have been frequent.
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14 comments:
It could just be that everyone is just as confused as everyone else.
Everybody listening? That’s bad. Because I need to talk to my peeps again. So all you Skeptics out there…STOP READING NOW.
OK believers, this needs repeating. There is no way on god’s green earth that Dr. Hill of Auburn, an eminently qualified Ornithologist and a man of impeccable reputation, is going to announce 9 pairs, or any pairs, of IBWO without iron-clad documentation to back it up.
Why do I repeat this? Because, and I hate to say this, but some on my side seem to think this is going to happen. Cyberthrush, I love you man, but it just ain’t going down like you said. After Arkansas, no one of stature in the field is going your suggested route.
It’s going to be fully documented or else! Now, you all know that the TB is a convert to the IBWO’s existence. I am a TRUE BELIEVER. But the days of Bigfoot, UFO’s, Aliens, and other such evidence must stop now.
We, believers, had better hope that no graduate student announces 9 pairs with only dubious documentation. Because the Skeptics are going to blow the roof off of this place.
Yours truly,
TB
Tom,
You forgot to list us at kloshklosh.bgosh.zorax.edu
We are glued to our teletransporters. Yours has become the highest rated show in our part of the universe. We can’t wait for the latest installment. Do the 9 pairs exist? Do they live happily ever after? Will fishcrow journey to Redbay? Keep it coming!
But what do we know? We are just Aliens from another planet.
Kneep……..kneep……..
.....oh....and will the new Airport be built on top of the little fledglings' nests?
Kneep......kneep....
I suspect the "nine pairs" thing is a bit of garbled nonsense from the rumor mill. It's the biggest red flag in the whole game. Maybe it has its origins in some statistical extrapolation of how many pairs the habitat could theoretically support; maybe someone in the telephone game turned "nine possible sightings, including a possible pair" into "nine pairs." I dunno. Most of us dunno.
Or, maybe they've got nine pairs and the pics to prove it (we can only hope!). But I'm with the TB, even if he is just a fictional beast himself. Anything short of "show me the birds!" at this point helps nothing and hurts everything.
TB,
Gosh you sound earnest today, but the skeptics really aren't to be feared. They're easily appeased with ordinary proofs to ordinary claims, or extraordinary proofs to extraordinary claims. Either will do just fine.
I don't know my neighbors in nearby Windsor, but I wish them the very best.
pd
I bet Dr. Hill has never had such a great build up to a talk as he's having for this one.
The room will be packed!
Methinks --
Are you really just "postulating," or actually leaking (eww..., not the image I intended)?
Will Auburn beat Cornell in this high stakes game? In IBWO poker do nine (hypothetical) pairs beat a bad video flush?
Don't go playing poker with that Cornell crowd. They know how to bluff the feds out of millions of dollars just by keeping a straight face and claiming they have the poker hand of the century while actually only holding a pileated and two clubs (to beat the crap out of anyone who doubts them).
anonymous cybertwit wrote:
"Are you really just "postulating," or actually leaking"
Since the statement that followed was about the upcoming audience reaction and how that reaction would be taken, one can safely say that it really was just "postulating".
Guess I'm slow to catch on, but when did Jon Dunn get elevated to high quote status with Carl Sagan, Tom? It is a most excellent quote. (Do you hear him now uwindsor auburn and fws? No? Then you're not asking the right people to review your data before announcements.)
If Methinks is right that the 9 pairs is a guesstimate based on audio (knocky or whatever), then someone hasn't clued in the folks in Florida that ducks and several species of woodpeckers in the area can produce sounds indistinguishable from some hypothetical Ivory-bill knocky sounds. Cornell searchers know this. Noel Snyder knows it. Jerry Jackson knows it. In fact, lots of us know it. This information should have been published already to spare these folks the embarassment, but it seems to have been suppressed or delayed for some reason. Or maybe they're just working out the mechanics of an Ivory-bill hitting a kayak, first the bill (bam) and then the body (bam).
When it comes to the rumors, we've heard it all before. I think the "Believer's" in-your-face dancing regarding the new Florida rumors is greatly premature. Remember Cornell, remember Fishcrow, remember Magic Guy? They all had reports. They all had crappy photos/videos. If these folks don't have good photographic documentation, they are unlikely to have anything worth hearing. It seems pretty clear that they haven't come anywhere close to Sibley's standard: "redundancy. Repeated sightings by independent observers of birds really well seen." Show us some good photos and/or video, and then I'll start listening. Real Evidence = Real Birds.
"when did Jon Dunn get elevated to high quote status with Carl Sagan, Tom?"
A few weeks ago.
Another IBWP episode that will siphon more USFWS serious recovery $ away from real imperiled species in real trouble that could truly benefit from the conservation help these $'s will provide - all to a species that by all credible scientific accounts is extinct. What is the acceptable number of species that could go extinct because $ to prevent their extinction went to IBWP?
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