Wednesday, August 24, 2005

-- More Speculation --

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Probabilistically, the most likely places to find Ivory-bills besides Arkansas (according to many accounts), may be Florida, Louisiana, Texas, and South Carolina. While paltry few areas in these states have ever been subject to thorough, large-scale, adequately-organized searches over the years, many individuals on their own have spent time perusing some of the best habitat in these states. However, as intimated in a previous post, given the more northerly location of the Arkansas sightings, nearby areas that have been largely ignored over the decades suddenly become much more intriguing to consider -- in particular, bottomland areas around the Mississippi River in southeastern Missouri, western Tennessee, and northwestern Mississippi are within comfortable range of the Cache River activity, even if less historically-pertinent.
I would be interested to hear from anyone seriously-involved in current or upcoming efforts to explore such areas (cyberthrush@wildmail.com). Which direction the AR. birds originally came from (many folks assume, unnecessarily, that they are remnants of the old Singer Tract population), and in which direction they might have dispersed young birds, if any, remain open questions. We are dealing here with a species that has demonstrated over time a habit of defying common assumptions.
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