An excerpt:
We did not see or hear any Ivorybills and furthermore, we found the habitat to be largely unsuitable for IBWO.
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10 comments:
I have visited this river system several times and it seems to me that Snowy1’s description of the habitat might be a fair assessment for a majority of the area. Given this, I was wondering if the habitat being potentially sub-optimal was requiring individual ivory-bills to use vastly expanded home ranges, making them essentially nomadic. This might account of the sparse encounter rate by observers in a fixed area. Any mathematicians out there? Would increased movement area increase or decrease the probability of being observed (any animal, not just IBWO)?
After writing the above, I just looked at the report from Dr. Hill’s group and they indicate that cavities are fairly common in a small area so maybe the resource question is moot since the birds seem to be using what they have available. Just free thinking over coffee.
For that matter, here's another novel thought: perhaps, after 200 years of intensive hunting and a serious genetic bottleneck, IBWOs have become exceptionally wary. Thus, if they so much as detect a human-like form or sound, they flee; they stay mostly silent as a result of this. This would explain the difficulty in seeing them by all involved.
Just a thought over my morning crackpipe...
"Just free thinking over coffee."
Maybe you should go back to a fairly good hallucinogenic. That always helps me see IBWOs and good habitat.
"Just a thought over my morning crackpipe... "
Oh, shoot, I didn't see that you had already taken on this cracker before I posted my comment. I like yours better.
For that matter, here's another novel thought: perhaps, after 200 years of intensive hunting and a serious genetic bottleneck, IBWOs have become exceptionally wary.
I have never found such explanations to be very satisfactory for any species. For one thing, we are being too Eurocentric on the selection pressure estimate. Humans have no doubt been harvesting the birds and modifying their habitat for thousands of years (2 – 8 mybp?), not just hundreds. True, the pressure has intensified dramatically over the last two centuries but by the 1950’s there appears to be little evidence that this intensity change had resulted in an increase in the wary phenotype or at least that the trait was widely present in the population. So working from this starting gene pool, the most probable outcome of a bottleneck (with intensification of genetic drift) should be to fix the common phenotype (non-wary), not the rare or non-existent wary. A scenario whereby selection would drive a shift to wary after only a few generations (50 years) with little or no starting variation would not seem the most probable outcome.
Yes.... I know you were just being sarcastic and picking on the "cracker". Appropriate term by the way since this word was applied to the people that lead cattle drives through the FL panhandle in the 1800's. But since there have been calls recently to upgrade the level of discourse among people using this blog, I thought that I might throw out something as blog bait. We do need something to talk about until April. Seems to be working. Have fun!
I don't think you'll hear much argument from any skeptic that "genetic bottlenecks" would produce Stealth Woodpeckers. The point is that that argument, as well as the first one proposed of "low densities and high dispersal" have both been used as unsubstanciated crutches by TBs to explain why there have been so few putative encounters and no incontrovertable documentation. They are both old (and tired) arguments dating back to the original Pearl River searches from 1999-2002. And neither holds any water.
If the woodpeckers still exist, go there, play tape, and they will come. If they don't come after reasonable playback, it's because they've been waylaid by death.
[ghostly voice]: "If you play tape. They will come."
My Two Cents
for thousands of years (2 – 8 mybp?)
Sorry. A coffee/crack/med induced typo. Should read 2 - 8 tybp of course.
I know you were just being sarcastic and picking on the "cracker".
Well now, as a southern boy myself and having been educated in one of the south's great second-tier universities, I am extremely amused that I am apparently smarter than that Ivy leaguer Fitzcrow.
So when I use the term cracker I am most assuredly assuming that it fits not only Bobby but Dr. Fitzcrow also.
You certainly don't have to be from the dear old south to be a full fledged cracker.
working from this starting gene pool, the most probable outcome of a bottleneck (with intensification of genetic drift) should be to fix the common phenotype (non-wary), not the rare or non-existent wary.
Probabilities schmobabilities. Damn your statistics to hell!!!!!
You can't deny the theoretical possibility that a mutant IBWO survivor has learned to imitate pileateds, including coating its wings with natural dyes, tars and resins found in its forest home.
Until you provide proof, including videographic evidence and a carcass or skeleton, of the last IBWO dying, you cannot say with 100% confidence that the IBWO is extinct.
That is why hope will prevail over the hate-filled rhetoric of self-satisfied skepticism.
//True Believer helmet off
They are both old (and tired) arguments dating back to the original Pearl River searches from 1999-2002. And neither holds any water.
Thanks for the helpful explanation. As usual, no idea is really new. I’ll go back to my coffee and quit trying to play armchair biologist.
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