Wednesday, November 15, 2006

A very long time to hide behind a tree

I don't know if you noticed, but as of yesterday, we've gone more than 22,844 consecutive days without anyone publicly producing definitive evidence of a living U.S. Ivory-bill.

You can use this web site to calculate the days.

There are now only 166 days remaining until April 30, 2007.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

And in those 22,844 days the U.S. population has gone from 130 million to 300 million.

If one was an optimistic (but tunnel-visioned) conservationist, the increase in potential observers could be seen as an increase in the chances of someone seeing an IBWO – as well as increasing the number of potential donors once one was sighted.

But if one was being realistic it would be clear that the increased human population (in addition to causing major destruction of habitat) also increases the chance that someone harboring a lifelong dream will encounter someone else harboring a similar fantasy and together they convince themselves (and possibly CLO, TNC, NPR, et al, ad nauseum) that their dream has been realized.

Of the 300,000,000 people in the U.S. about 0.00000167%.claim to have seen an IBWO.
A substantial increase in that percentage will require a major upswing in sightings or a major decrease in the population. The odds of either happening are slim.

Anonymous said...

The late U.S. Sen. Russell B. Long of Louisiana is said to have coined the expression, "Don't tax me, don't tax thee, tax that fellow behind the tree."

Long (played by Walter Matthau), in Oliver Stone's film JFK, also said, "Those Warren Commission fellows were pickin' gnatshit out of pepper..."

Long should be alive and Chancellor of LSU...