"the bird could have been hit by a truck on Interstate 40"

Mel White's National Geographic Ivory-bill article is now available here.

Ivory-bill Researchers Forum

...now online here; evidently set up by Donald Kimball, aka Wompoo Dove.

From the "About Us" page (the bold font is mine):

Lastly, and most importantly, our position is not one of debate about the species’ current existence. There are many sites and blogs already that can be used expressly for this purpose. If your belief is that the species existence is still in question then this site is not a good fit for you. We believe our energy is far better spent in the field or dialoguing with others who spend their valuable time and resources to help uncover the mysteries surrounding the Ivory-bill

Big Woods "Ivory-bill" searchers still needed

From this link:

The Ivorybill volunteer application is still open until December 1.
Interested applicants can go to

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/ivory/latest/volunteer/document_view

and click on the volunteer link. Join the search for the bird in the Big Woods.

Thank you,
Sara Barker
IBWO Volunteer Coordinator
Cornell Lab of Ornithology

From this link (the bold fonti is mine):

The Ivory-bill staff at the Cornell Lab will evaluate the applicants interested in volunteering in Arkansas. We will fill slots first according to skill level and relevant experience; remaining slots will be filled according to the order in which applications were received, for those meeting minimum requirements. We hope to accommodate all interested parties, but we may not be able to do so if we receive overwhelming numbers of applications. We will respond to all applicants by mid-November via email, so please make sure you include an accurate email address on the form.

Harrison on public radio this Saturday

According to this, Bobby Harrison is scheduled to appear on Michael Feldman's public radio show "Whad'Ya Know?" this Saturday morning (the bold font is mine):

Saturday's guests will be University of Alabama in Huntsville history professors Andrew Dunar and Stephen Waring, authors of "The Power to Explore: A History of the Marshall Space Flight Center, 1969-1990," and Oakwood College instructor and debunker of the ivory-billed woodpecker extinction myth Bobby Harrison.

I wonder if Feldman will actually take Harrison's claims seriously.

IBWO gala in Huntsville?

Here.

Update: As noted in the comment section, look at the ridiculous "Levels of Contributorships" here:

Corporate $100,000.+
Champions $10,000.+
Patrons $5,000.+
Advocates $1,000.+
Enthusiasts $500.+
Friends $240.+ ($20/mo)
Fans $120.+ ($10/mo)

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.

Playing that ol' Ivory-bill card

Here.

Excerpts (the bold font is mine):

In mid-September, the FAA authorized the construction of a new, $331-million airport in a remote area approximately 30 miles from Panama City. The facility itself would destroy nearly 2,000 acres of wetlands and trigger development on thousands of surrounding acres of wetlands that provide important habitat for threatened and endangered species -- potentially including the ivory-billed woodpecker, a bird previously thought to be extinct. The wetlands also are vital for filtering contaminants, cycling nutrients, buffering storms and controlling flooding.
...
Defenders of Wildlife is especially concerned about the impact a new airport would have on what might turn out to be home to the ivory-billed woodpecker.

"The fact that scientists have seen the ivory-billed woodpecker along the Choctawhatchee River is cause for celebration," said Jason Rylander, staff attorney at Defenders of Wildlife. "It's also cause for caution. Any proposal for major development in the area must consider the risk it would pose to the future of this bird -- as well as the other endangered and threatened wildlife that live there."

Update: Another article is here. An excerpt:

In September, scientists said they had seen the rare Ivory-billed woodpecker, a bird once thought extinct, in the nearby Choctawhatchee River basin — a claim that makes conservation all the more urgent, the lawsuit said.

Shepherdson said her organization has already asked the FAA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which still has permit approvals pending, to review the project because of the Ivory-billed sightings.

"It is a significant development," she said.

But Curtis said planners have researched the Ivory-billed's habitat and do not believe the bird is in the area.

"We don't think that is going to be an issue for us. It is something we have looked at quite extensively. Where it was seen was quite a distance from the airport site," he said.

"At least he has scientific basis for his faith"

An article on the South Carolina IBWO search is here.

An excerpt:

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service started searching for ivory-billeds at Congaree National Park last spring after getting a $75,000 grant. Volunteers located many of the large, irregular nest cavities and odd tree scrapes typical of ivory-billeds, but there were no verified sightings of the birds themselves, said Jennifer Koches, spokeswoman for the federal agency.

“What we did find leads us to believe that we need to be out there intensively looking,” Koches said.

After a typical intense local search this year once again fails completely, it seems likely that we will again be presented with a supposedly "encouraging" report about bark scaling/glimpses/intriguing sounds/etc (if results are reported at all). It would be most refreshing to hear some candid talk along these lines:

"...But I think we can say with almost 100 percent certainty that there were no ivory-billed woodpeckers in the Pearl River and Boque Chitto wildlife management areas during the search in 2002. They could not have escaped us. We covered every inch of that area with ace black-belt birders, and we had the listening devices."

The above quote is from Van Remsen (page 124 of The Grail Bird).

Update: The Nature Conservancy website has a couple of additional links on the South Carolina search.

An excerpt from this link:

Far from just beating its head against a wall, The South Carolina chapter of The Nature Conservancy, as part of the SC IBWO Working Group, is making great strides in the quest to confirm the rediscovery of the Ivory-billed woodpecker.

An excerpt from this link:

In the winter 2006, an organized search effort was conducted in at the Congaree National Park. Forty-six volunteers covered more than 7000 acres (approx 1/3 of the park).

Van Remsen still believes

Check this out.

Note the lukewarm quote from Jon Andrew:

“There’s enough evidence that I have to behave like the birds are there,” said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Jon Andrew, who is team leader for the recovery effort.

Update: An April 2005 email from Van Remsen is here. An excerpt (the bold font is mine):

-- yes, we have tangible evidence -- a lousy, blurry, but indisputable video clip that will be available on the web, possibly Thursday.

-- despite many thousands of hours of systematic searching and deployment of dozens of Autonomous Recording Units, we have only a few reliable glimpses, and, on tape, some double-raps and some 'kent' calls. The bird (no evidence for more than one) is incredibly wary, mostly silent, and uses the core search area only a couple of days every couple of months, as best as we can tell. It has mostly eluded a core of experienced field people. No surprise, then, that I had no luck either.

More from Birdchick

An excerpt from this post:

The talk wound down to the ivory-billed woodpecker of course. As Jeff was showing the footage of the Lunneau video, I was thinking to the first time I saw it last year at the Rio Grande fest and how I was excited and full of hope and couldn't wait for the adventure of going to Arkansas. Now watching the footage again and being slowed down I was a tad jaded and depressed--we didn't have better footage to show for it yet, I truly thought it would be different this year, hope can be so fleeting sometimes. Plus, watching the slow motion of the wing beats on the video compared to a pileated woodpecker reminded me of the whole "back and to the left" of the Kennedy assassination. Come on, Florida, get us a GOOD photo.