Thursday, July 05, 2007

Audubon magazine articles

"Giving Up the Ghost?" here.

Another article on the Mobile Search Team is here.

4 comments:

Luneau Atheist said...

This is a great summing up of the CLO situation:

"People like to say that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but there is no absence of evidence," says Sibley. "They’ve got 50,000 hours of zeroes. At some point, that becomes evidence that the bird is not there."

To which CLO responds with their new "slightest chance" reply, an interesting twist from definitely having the bird:

But Ron Rohrbaugh, who is directing the Cornell Lab’s effort, said it would be "a terrible mistake" to end the quest if there is even the slightest chance the ivory-bill is out there—somewhere, anywhere.

Anonymous said...

But Cornell researchers are pleading for patience. “This is a species for which a concerted, exhaustive range-wide search had been long, long overdue,” John Fitzpatrick

Same old story. " We are the first to ever search...."

OK, once more...

Expert birders have looked long and hard in historic haunts of the IBWO since the 1950s. They've paddled in the swamps, looked at big holes in trees, and heard funny IBWO-like sounds. They didn't get any press. And they didn't find IBWOs.

"Concerted" efforts by hallowed educational institutions have gained us nothing but hyperbole, innuendo, mistaken IDs, and a Watergate-style circling of the
academic wagons.

Anonymous said...

But Ron Rohrbaugh, who is directing the Cornell Lab’s effort, said it would be "a terrible mistake" to end the quest if there is even the slightest chance the ivory-bill is out there—somewhere, anywhere.

--------------

“It’s impossible to prove that the ivory-billed woodpecker is not there," Sibley said, "so there will always be some shred of hope.”

(from http://jscms.jrn.columbia.edu/cns/2007-03-27/brown-birdhunt)

Anonymous said...

well i'll give audubon magazine a few points for at least trying to get a quote from Fitzpatrick ... but clearly, he isn't returning calls ... but they are responding to a question different from the one that was asked. The point that sibley makes is "Isn't it likely that this was all a mistake?"

and Fitz says (via an email) - it would be a mistake to stop looking, you have to have "hope" etc ... it would be nice - and of no harm to the putative bird - to have Fitzpatrick say, "this all COULD have been a mistake" ...