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"LET FREEDOM R-R-R-RING, let the white dove sing
Let the whole world know that today is a day of reckoning
Let the weak be strong, let the right be wrong
Roll the stone away, let the guilty payIt's Independence Day"
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Not much new or exciting, but maybe once-a-month I’ll do an ‘odds-and-ends’ post just to pass a few things along (IF I can even find stuff significant enough for passing along)….
1) Matt Courtman has embarked on what he calls a “5-year” Mission Ivorybill search for the IBWO; you can follow along here, if you’re not already:
https://www.facebook.com/MissionIvorybill
…not clear on how he settled on 5 years as a suitable time-frame, or exactly what the search plan is (but starting in La.); and hard to imagine this topic will still even hold interest if nothing produced in say within 3 years, or that resources for such an effort will be sustainable that long. But with all that said, wish him well, as one of the few who is reporting his efforts on the Web.
BTW, he posts some of his Monday night Zoom discussions (often ~2 hrs.) here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmLnB5_tJEtlLVn5NdNcRoA/featured
2) John Williams has been researching camera systems (for capturing the IBWO in flight) and reports his conclusions here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/179784035376368/permalink/5113358972018825/
3) USFWS originally listed Sept. as the time they would make a final decision on de-listing the Ivory-bill (and other species)… not sure if the additional public meeting and comment extension altered that date (pushing it later) though if the IBWO is now 'de-coupled' from the other species it very well could. Again, if they strictly go by available science (as they perceive it) I think they will de-list (unless the next 6 months produce new evidence), but if public pressure/clamor plays a role, as well it may, then perhaps they'll refrain for this year. Another thing unclear to me is how many of the officials making this decision were even present for the original Cornell/USFWS search -- there may have been a lot of staff turnover, especially during the 4 Trump years.
4) Will reiterate my own redundant take on things that a nesthole, roosthole, or foraging site need be found, and that is only likely to happen with a fairly large-scale, organized, transect-type search (not solo or small-team searches)… thus pessimistic for the months ahead, with a desire to temper enthusiasm; there will be a lot of noise and chatter ahead, but substance or results, well, much less confident… we’ve been down the road of overblown optimism so many times before, and all it accomplishes is to convert more neutral folks into skeptics :((
5) Here's another podcast with Dr. Chris Haney (whose recent IBWO book I overviewed HERE):
6) I've tried unsuccessfully to find out what happened to the long-running IBWO Researchers Forum (that had paid for another year of operation, not long before they disappeared), but if anyone knows and can say, fill us in.
7) Awhile back a couple of folks wrote to ask about ‘the elephant in the room’ I had previously referenced, and misinterpreted what I may have meant, so I'll clarify:
Needless to say, we are in a state of heated polarization on this topic. "Evidence” presented by “believers” will NOT be believed, because they have already committed themselves (and biased themselves) to a viewpoint; i.e. "evidence" from "believers" is presumed wrong, imprecise, and non-objective by skeptics for reasons stated repeatedly over the years... even photo/video evidence, because of the ease of manipulation, will be assumed, as the default, to be fraudulent/concocted until shown otherwise at this point -- the full background/history/provenance of any such photo evidence needing to be demonstrated and scrutinized closely. In short, we’re in the ironic position where the only people who could produce acceptable/objective evidence of IBWO persistence are skeptics, who of course are not looking for the species… a somewhat surreal, unfortunate state of affairs...
So again, I worry about where this catch-22 situation is headed (believers are the only ones looking, and pre-committed believers are too biased/gullible to be taken seriously)… Ivory-bills seen and photographed by multiple observers, at close range and for a significant time period, of course can still win the day… but will that ever happen?
For now, the elephant in the room is simply that, from the get-go, “believers” are not viewed as credible by the wider birding community, and their arguments/analyses will continue to be dismissed.
8) An old joke talks of searching for keys near a lamp post where the light is, not where the keys were lost... one wonders if we are looking for IBWOs too much where we expect them to be (and maybe they continue to disperse through), and not in out-of-the-way unexpected places where perhaps they now reside; Mark Michaels recently mentioned Oklahoma as being part of the IBWO former range, and I'm interested not only in their real former range, but in where this strong-flying species could have dispersed to in the last 80 years that go largely ignored (over time I've had reports from southeast Missouri, southern Illinois/Indiana, western Tennessee, parts of Kentucky, Alabama, Georgia, not generally viewed as likely nor taken very seriously). The size/magnitude/density of the well-known search areas are difficult enough, but once you let loose of the conclusions/requirements imposed by Tanner, and the passage of decades, the possibilities outside those boundaries are daunting indeed.
....but enough for now.
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Another quick note: for any who missed the 90-min. USFWS January public meeting on IBWO de-listing (which I wrote about HERE) it is now posted on YouTube here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPPTEhUyv0U
[Again, you have a couple of days until Feb. 10 to write them with any last thoughts on the matter, and I believe they will be making a final decision in about 8 months... of course potentially subject to any new evidence attained in that period. The IBWO story may be a bit of a minefield over that time... wishing Bill Pulliam was around to talk about it with and compare notes, but, like so many that this story has outlived, he's not.]
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In Dec./Jan. I considered but refrained from a couple of possible posts, one of which was to be about ‘an elephant in the room,' which I still may address... but in meantime think I’ll just drop this old Richard Feynman piece here without comment (it’s actually quite a famous old commencement address he gave at Caltech, and the source for the Feynman heading quote I used several posts ago):
https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm
IBWO believers have been accused at times of engaging in “cargo cult science” and it is best to know where that concept stems from.
[With that said, don’t jump to conclusions about specifically how or where I think this is actually pertinent to the IBWO debate… except that I do think it has some relevance.]
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For those who missed the USFWS Zoom meeting, they have posted the Introduction to the meeting here:
Within 2 weeks the actual audio of the meeting is also expected to be posted.
Reminder that you have until Feb.10 to enter comments on the USFWS’s de-listing proposal; AND they are desiring comments referencing actual data or evidence supporting your viewpoint, NOT just simple opinions, yea or nay. You may comment here:
https://www.regulations.gov/commenton/FWS-R4-ES-2020-0109-0107
Again, I believe it is the USFWS intention to render a final decision in about 9 months time. And I'll simply re-iterate, that in a day when Government agencies of all sorts are being so widely disparaged, they risk far greater harm to their credibility by declaring the species extinct at this point-in-time, than by maintaining its endangered status.
Also, a reminder that Matt Courtman is doing weekly Monday Zoom meetings (open to anyone) to discuss topics related to the IBWO, all in preparation for an earnest search for the species he plans embarking on soon. I believe there are essentially 2 meetings left; you can follow along at his FB site “Mission Ivorybill” here:
https://www.facebook.com/MissionIvorybill
(some past meetings have already been recorded on YouTube as well, but not all)
Perhaps even more importantly, if you wish to assist Matt in this search endeavor (or donate $$ in support, or simply ask questions) contact him here:
matt@missionivorybill.org
[I don't know if Matt intends to search outside of Louisiana.]
For the next several months my intention is to primarily focus only on any significant, new, persuasive, or at least interesting, evidence that comes along (and there may well be NONE), and to NOT be routinely reporting on all the tangential discussions/debates/data/speculation/historical-info/hype that will likely be generated. Some evidence has not yet been made public, but what little bit of it I’ve seen, and just from the whole history and pattern of such “evidence,” I again expect NO gamechangers in the near term (if anything, just more irresolvable arguments, perhaps even generating greater skepticism, especially should another hoax spring forth).
[I do, on-the-other-hand, occasionally link to various other IBWO matters, not covered on the blog, on my Twitter feed]:
https://twitter.com/cyberthrush
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