Posting from Gary Graves

Currently on the Arkansas Birding list here:

Many sections of the draft Ivory-bill recovery plan still reflect the euphoria of the "rediscovery" announcement in 2005. Much has been learned since then. Although intelligent well-intentioned people may have different perspectives on the unfolding Ivory-bill story, there is little reason for optimism in October 2007. The failure to obtain tangible, indisputable proof of an Ivory-bill after the largest and most expensive government-sponsored biological search effort in history dictates a reappraisal of the supposed evidence and a conservative prospectus for recovery. Virtually every scrap of information that has come to public attention since the veil of secrecy was lifted suggests that the recent records of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers from Arkansas and Florida were likely based on misidentification of the common Pileated Woodpecker, misinterpretation of sounds produced by other avian species, or on purely wishful thinking. All it takes is a few minutes of high-quality videotape of a calling and actively foraging Ivory-bill to falsify this hypothesis (still photos and sound recordings are too easy to fake). Despite the enormous academic and financial incentives to obtain such evidence, nobody has been able to locate an Ivory-bill that can be shown to someone else. That is telling fact. Confirmation bias (the tendency to interpret data in a way that confirms one's preconceptions and desires) and Groupthink (where critical thinking and skepticism are set aside so that the group can reach consensus and avoid conflict) have almost certainly played an important role from the beginning. As depressing as it may be, each passing month without definitive proof makes these dark possibilities a little more likely. Regrettably, it may already be too late to prevent the Ivory-bill phantasma from becoming the "cold fusion" debacle of conservation biology. This spectacle will undoubtedly damage the credibility of the USFWS and the participating NGO's and make conservation work a tougher sell with state and federal legislators and the general public. In any event, the hubbub over Ivory-bills should not distract federal and state agencies and NGO's from the laudable goal of preserving and creating new wildlife habitat in the Mississippi Embayment.

Gary Graves
Smithsonian Institution