Tuesday, April 27, 2021

-- No…. --

 —————————————————————

I keep getting a trickle of inquiries (increasing of late) essentially asking if I’ve seen any compelling IBWO evidence lately or know of any encouraging Ivorybill news forthcoming. So rather than keep answering folks individually let me just say in general “No” have NOT seen any new evidence/claims, either on the Web nor arriving privately via email, that I find convincing of IBWO presence, or at least not indicative of ‘proof’ of such existence. In fact, I’ve lost track of how many years it’s now been since I’ve had a really strongly interesting claim come to my attention (despite several coming in every year).

With that said, efforts remain ongoing in several quarters to search for the species at least on occasion, and of course it will only take one truly good video or photo to alter the landscape. I continue to believe the likelihood of its existence is better than 50/50, but each winter and breeding season that ends with no definitive record for the IBWO is despairing to say the least.

Wish I had more positive or encouraging thoughts/news to share, but the level of evidence needed for this species, and long, long, longtime absence of such, will continue to make most claims inadequate for the bulk of the birding and scientific community.


—————————————————————

No comments: