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As far as I can tell the very earliest Rainsong began his search is Dec. 18 (or a day or two later); doesn't appear to have involved a great deal of advance planning, and not clear to me how he selected the specific area he would search. And then 11 days later he finds and photographs an Ivory-bill... hmmmm, nice piece of work!! The press release came out on Jan. 19, saying Rainsong searched for 30 days, implying the news release came immediately upon completion of said search (feasible). No details yet on exactly what Rainsong did between Dec. 29 and and Jan. 18 (continued searching same area, adjacent areas, tried to get video, contacted key people,etc.???) [NOTE: commenter below finds indication that expedition was originally only scheduled to go from Dec. 21 to Jan 3 ]
Last I heard, Jerry Jackson has not seen pics nor been in contact with Rainsong, though others on the press list have.
And I can only reiterate that nothing coming in to me thus far lends any confidence in these claims at all, while there is plenty to be leery of.
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10 comments:
Not to defend someone I don't know, but has there been much searching along the Sabine River before? There are a couple wildlife management areas, but the area appears to be mostly privately owned. There certainly appear to be large areas of contiguous bottomland forest. I think the story is more plausible than it would be if he reported finding the bird where others have been looking.
More on Rainsong's Craigslist ad. I did some searching and it turns out a spam site grabbed part of the ad to use as filler content on a spam link blog so now we can at least read a little more of his ad. Here's what I have been able to piece together so far.
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"$10,000.00 Reward - Wildlife Research Expedition in Texas
Photographer and Travel Assistant Needed (December 21 thru January 3, 2010)
Thank you for your inquiry about the expedition and this “Photographer and Travel Assistant” job offer.
My name is Daniel Rainsong. The first thing I need to tell you about this job is that the assignment goes from December 21, 2009 until January 3, 2010.
The job's main and only goal is to get photographs, along with ...
Daniel Rainsong. Location: Texas; Compensation: All expenses will ... "
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I found a way to extract more of the ad from yahoo. More to come.
thanks for the Web-sleuthing Kona; so only a planned 2-wk. excursion... turned into 30 days because of finding bird, or never really 30 days???. Plot thickens............
Duh, I just realized what the rest of you probably saw right away, that the "$10K Reward" thing in the Craigslist ad means that he is *after* the reward, not offering it.
Great if the reward is inspiring people to search; just wish these folks would have some common sense, read the fine print, and not go around spreading suspicious hyperbole.
Of course the reward only pays if it leads to independent confirmation of the bird; that's to negate the value of fakery and/or delusion!
I keep finding more and more of the ad. It is really long. Just when I think I have the whole thing I stumble upon another section. This is a painstaking process. I may just post up a link to what I piece together. Sit tight.
More ponderings about the reward... It seemed to me that the real hope in offering the reward was that someone who already knew of a nest or roost (such as a local hunter or fisherman) would be persuaded to give up his/her secret. Inspiring no-nothing treasure hunters to trek out in to the woods and return with claims laced with suspicions and less-than-honorable motives was not really the goal; indeed it was one of the primary worries...
Okay, I'm going to bed. I worked on piecing this together for over an hour. Here's is my pieced together version of the Craigslist ad. There are still some parts missing. Let me know if anyone can crack them. http://www.twincitiesnaturalist.com/2010/01/daniel-rainsongs-craiglist-ad-about.html
Let's see, Hmmmmm... In a previous post, I told Cyberthrush that if he emailed me I would give him Rainsong's cell phone number. Waiting... Waiting... Waiting...
Cyberthrush did claim in a previous posting that about, "...2 hours of grilling..." would get the truth out of Rainsong.
Joe Hepperle was still waiting... waiting... waiting... no email from Cyberthrush... Hmmmm
But yet Cyberthrush pleads with anyone who has knowledge to post it here. Cyberthrush could have had the word straight from the horse's mouth (so to speak). But Cyberthrush never emailed. Hmmmm.
Now Kirk Mona comes along, and I have no reason to think bad of him. But the "Craigslist ad" that he is putting so much effort to recover is sitting right here on my computer (in bits and bytes). Why didn't Kirk just email Rainsong for a copy? That's how I got mine! Dan would have sent you a copy too. Ah well... I suppose there is some excitement in the chase and the hunt -- of piecing together a puzzle from scratch. It wasn't necessary though. I've left a message on Kirks twincities site about this.
Any neutral observers here, the only real puzzle is why Cyberthrush passed up an opportunity to speak one-on-one with Rainsong when he (and only he) was told from the git-go that I would give him Rainsong's cell phone number. And why Kirk is spending so much time trying to glue back together Rainsong's Craigslist ad when a simple email to Rainsong would have gotten him a clean fresh copy straight from the man himself. Hmmmm.
Yeah, there seems to be something underhanded going on here, but it's not Rainsong, it's you folks that are passing judgment when you had the opportunity to deal directly with Rainsong, but inexplicably 'passed'! Totally unbelievable!
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