-- Tuesday Sidebars --

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A link that showed up in my inbox a bit ago went to this Arkansas news story about the Freedom of Information Act and the Arkansas Fish and Game Chairman, Craig Campbell:

http://tinyurl.com/27lvkjp

In general not really of much interest to me, except for a few lines that popped out:

"Campbell told the committee the only thing he was still concerned about regarding the FOI was the possibility that releasing public records could harm endangered species. He said that after information was released about the ivory-billed woodpecker’s discovery on the Cache River, 'there were people from England, Spain, Portugal, throughout Europe, throughout the United States, coming in by bus. The woodpecker didn’t have a chance.'"

Where did that come from? Was it just an exaggeration to try to make a point? Or, is my memory off, and there were busloads of Europeans coming to the Big Woods? While there were a lot of visitors, relatively speaking, to Brinkley, AR., my recollection is that there never was the sort of streaming flood of seekers that many had feared an Ivory-bill announcement might bring on; in fact my impression is that Cornell was a bit hard-pressed to even attract the number of qualified volunteers/staff to their Big Woods project as they might've liked to have had on board. Busloads of people? The Ivory-bill didn't have a chance?? Maybe(?) a little hyperbole there (the release of info about endangered species certainly can have drawbacks, but I'm not sure that an influx of those pesky Europeans ;-) is one of them....).

In a totally separate sidebar, I'll just put in a plug for the relatively new ABA birding blog, in case any aren't aware of it. I've been pleased with the variety of writers, subject matter, and posts they are putting out, and after all the recent controversy surrounding the ABA, nice to see them doing a good job with this:

http://blog.aba.org/

Winter is just around the corner, and with it at least some independent searchers (who aren't already in the field) will be heading out in most of the states that had official searches over the last 5 years for yet another, if albeit, slimmed-down look-around (...don't know if that there Iowa boy is still planning on a mid-December visit to the Sabine River as he previously scheduled and advertised for...).
Thanks to all who send me emails about your own private endeavors, even when you don't have a lot of positive or substantive news to pass along; I like knowing what out-of-the-way areas, are at least getting some coverage.

And assuming(??) I have nothing more to post in next 48 hours, a Happy Thanksgiving to one-and-all.
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