— Another Chuck Hunter Posting — +Addenda

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Well, gee, wasn’t planning to post again this soon, but Chuck Hunter now has another superb entry to the IBWO FB page that I'm compelled to pass along:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/179784035376368/posts/5414415795246473/?comment_id=5414482845239768&reply_comment_id=5414735891881130

I had just posted an Addendum to the prior post about Chuck, and then lo-and-behold he adds the above post which aligns virtually 100% with my own view… which is that the Cornell/USFWS work in the Big Woods was the last really good evidence for the IBWO.  The Auburn work and everything else since, while containing plenty of interesting, suggestive elements, also suffers from issues/problems that leave much of it as highly speculative. The notion that keeps getting loosely tossed around that there has been scientific “proof” of IBWOs since the Big Woods study is just patently false. Even members of the Cornell team I suspect would confess to the possibility that the IBWOs they encountered may in fact have been the last 1 or 2 on Earth! — not that that is a likely or probable scenario, but just that it remains a possibility which can’t simply be laid aside.

And I’ll reiterate what I’ve said multiple times before:

IF IBWOs exist in numbers sufficient for reproducing and persisting through these decades the question is not only why do repeated searches following up on credible sightings fail to produce definitive photographic evidence, but more importantly why have remote automatic cameras (that can have mechanical problems, but not the prevalent flaws of human observers) trained on suspected IBWO cavities and foraging sites or flyways (the Big Woods ACONE system) failed, despite millions of frames, to capture even one... single... indisputable photo (made public). The two main explanations are that the species is extinct, or we humans, despite 100s of man-hours of work and study remain ridiculously incompetent at correctly identifying IBWO cavities or foraging work… take your pick… neither a very fun choice (…yeah, a third possibility is that we keep finding such cavities and foraging sites AFTER they are no longer in use, but c’mon now! -- these birds have to forage and enter/leave cavities EVERY single day). Possibly, human activity around such sites, or even the mechanical presence of the cameras, simply scare the birds off, but again, the more time that passes, the more such explanations seem like tenuous pie-in-the-sky.

[With all that said, I continue to believe that IBWOs persist in 3 or more states... but, I fully understand the skepticism, derision, mockery, and sarcasm that gets hurled our way!]

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ADDENDUM  5/31:

small addendum, to say that if you're interested in the IBWO of course you must be interested in the Pileated Woodpecker as well, and I only recently discovered this Facebook group (it's been around for well over a decade) devoted to the PIWO. Some nice photos and videos... so as much as I hate promoting anything Facebookish or Zuckerbergian, here it be...:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/74736493236

ADDENDUM2  6/2:

Just since mentioning 11 days ago that the Facebook IBWO group had 3900 participants it has already grown to over 4700 and counting… on the one hand nice to see this continued, growing interest in the species, but on other hand the ‘discussions’ become increasingly repetitious, erratic, often-superficial, and difficult to follow. :(  ...not sure how much longer it can continue on this trajectory before becoming more problematic than time-worthy. Perhaps some form of greater moderation is needed?

Anyway, on a more fun note, this quite interesting video (of a juvie Pileated caught in a young woman’s hair) has been making the rounds, often in abbreviated form. Check out this 3+ minute version to get the fuller story. Almost evokes memories of “Sonny boy” and J.J. Kuhn, so just maybe THIS is how an IBWO will eventually be documented for good! (LOL).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbmHg6GG46E

ADDENDUM3  6/7:

If you missed it, last evening on Matt Courtman’s Monday night Zoom meeting, David Martin gave a very nice, cautious summation of basic/key information about the IBWO that newbies especially often ask about, consistently emphasizing that what we THINK we know is based on very limited sample size and study; i.e. how much of that 'knowledge' is applicable to IBWOs remaining today is difficult to feel certain about. BTW, Matt’s Zoom meetings for the immediate future will be limited to the first Monday of each month (not weekly as they have been). I presume at some point Martin's talk will be available on YouTube but no idea how soon… Matt’s, ummm, a bit behind at getting these posted.

Hype and speculation continues to swirl, on the Web and in my inbox, about searches or sightings of the species, but again I wouldn’t expect much solid news anytime soon. Perhaps in the fall USFWS will make a decision (or decide to postpone any decision) on de-listing the species.

ADDENDUM4  6/8:

==> INTERVIEW!:  First, I might like to interview a skeptic for a blog post; could be anyone from those who are convinced the species is extinct to a more agnostic sort who simply leans strongly that direction — but should be someone who has followed the whole IBWO debate fairly closely for a long time and is familiar with the arguments. In the distant past I did a number of transcribed “interviews” simply sending out a set of questions to which the respondent sends back their answers. Let me know if possibly interested! (cyberthrush@gmail.com)

Meanwhile, the IBWO Facebook group is now at over 5100 members; impressive to watch the rapid growth of participation over there (though with that said, only a limited percentage appear to be experienced ornithologists or birders).

And thanks to all who keep sending me tidbits via email, most of which I’m already aware of, though some of the background or backchannel stuff is helpful or new. If I don’t respond to something that you think calls for a response don’t hesitate to nudge me again. I’ll reiterate though that the vast majority (indeed, almost all) of pics/videos/audio sent my way are unlikely to get a positive response unless it is fairly clearcut, or I think is good enough to be of interest to skeptics.

-- Noise Versus Signal (...I Read It All So You Don’t Have To) :( -- +ADDENDA

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Nothing too notable to report from here; unlikely to be much news during the summer, unless it pertains to something from last winter that just now gets publicized/reported. Short of the Project Principalis work, making its way (in some form) into a reputable journal, I'm still not expecting much news prior to end of year. So just another ramble....

A lot of readers to the blog go back a very long way, and only check back here periodically for  anything new to look into. They don’t follow all the IBWO-related miscellany going on around the Web, primarily on social media (very little being written up regularly in scientific circles). Plenty of loose articles/commentary/podcasts also around the Web stemming from the Project Principalis paper too. The most active of the 'social sites' now is Facebook, with one major, rapidly-growing IBWO FB group currently over 3900 members and counting (I credit Matt Courtman in large part for the growth of that site, though many contribute, and Matt doesn’t even post that often, nor run the site). But the more and faster it grows, the more that many of the discussions/threads turn into daily trainwrecks. I HAVE little choice but to follow the site myself for the worthwhile tidbits that arise, but hard to recommend it unconditionally to others, as it gets slathered with a lot of misleading or unconfirmed info, frustrating repetition, old and uncertain info, weak logic, loose speculation, sketchy science, bias, and cringeworthy postings, etc. that can easily lead new people (in particular) astray.  Additionally, at that site as well as others, IBWO sightings are (as predicted) getting reported virtually every week -- some are from decades ago, and others far more recent, but few have the detail or credibility to be taken very seriously, or come from experienced birders. But then everything the Ivory-bill touches seems to get mushy :(( -- with that said, though, I'll refer folks to this more interesting, lengthy post that demonstrates the sort of detail needed:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/179784035376368/permalink/5379507862070600/

IBWO expert Chuck Hunter** was among those drawn in to comment on the above report, and he doesn't often participate in Ivory-bill Web commentary. (I might add that David Martin, formerly of the IBWO Researchers Forum is also participating in the Facebook group, where even Don Kimball, likewise formerly of IBWO.net, has previously commented.)

In any event, I keep reading the online stuff so you don’t have to! ;) … unless of course you want to.  As Nate Silver would say, just be careful of the noise versus the signal out there.

On a side-note, someone asked me awhile back which states I believed IBWOs might exist in (after I'd mentioned believing the species was extant in at least 3 states), so I made a quick list. Probably most folks would put Louisiana and Florida at the top of such a list (as do I), then it gets a little more murky and subjective. But my own, for-fun-and-controversy, continued list in order of probability is:

3)  Mississippi

4)  Arkansas

5)  Georgia

6)  Alabama

7)  Tennessee

8)  Texas

9)  southeastern Missouri

10)  S. Carolina

11)  southern Illinois

12) N. Carolina

13) Kentucky

(...and I don't restrict IBWO probability to just 3 of these, but 3 at a minimum)

Finally, Matt Courtman is concentrating on the Tensas Wildlife Refuge in the initial weeks of his small, organized search for IBWOs in Louisiana (...or wherever else it takes him), and seems to be focusing on finding cavities or foraging sites... which again, seem unlikely to be findable at this (leaf-out) time of year. His passion for the bird is inspiring others and he continues to do Monday evening Zoom meetings (8pm EDT) on the subject, including urging skeptics and deniers to come online and debate with him over the evidence. Unfortunately (to sound like a broken record again), the impasse between 'believers' and non-believers over what constitutes good science or logic is irreconcilable without definitive photographic evidence -- the current level of argumentation could easily continue for another 20 years unresolved, getting us nowhere... and none of us want that (...indeed, several of us will be extinct in 20 years! ;)).

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ADDENDUM 5/26:

In a bit of additional news, Matt Courtman reports (on FB) that his ($12,000) is the only reward currently being offered for information leading to documentable evidence of living Ivory-billed Woodpeckers. The old Nature Conservancy reward of $50,000 has apparently been withdrawn, and I believe there was also previously a separate $10,000 reward (perhaps specific to Arkansas?) which is also defunct. 

Hate to nitpick over words, but Matt's announcement says in part “…we must find an active Ivory-bill roost cavity… in a tree where a living Ivory-billed Woodpecker makes its home. The Louisiana Wilds will pay a $12,000 reward to anyone who leads us to a tree that has an Ivory-bill living in it.” This makes it sound as if someone simply finds an IBWO foraging spot where manual monitoring, or an automatic camera, easily produces the necessary, definitive evidence of existence, they may not be eligible for reward, since it is NOT a roost nor live-in cavity. [Matt, being an ex-lawyer, I would tend to take his words pretty literally]

The old reward, during the Big Woods search, more generally stated that the reward would be proffered to an individual “…leading a project scientist to a living Ivory-billed Woodpecker at a nesting, roosting, or foraging site.”

Of course the monetary reward will not be the biggest reward for finding the IBWO, and even to the extent it bears importance, any individual locating IBWOs will have opportunities to make a lot more than $12,000 through other means should they wish to.

ADDENDUM2 5/28:

** Someone wrote to ask who “Chuck Hunter” was… so for any who don’t know, Chuck is a long-time USFWS biologist who was integral to the prior Big Woods (and beyond) search for the IBWO, and is likely the most expert current individual on the species. In the past, perhaps because of his position, he rarely commented on social media, or even in public, on IBWO matters, so it is fabulous to see him participating in his thoughtful, cautious, careful, and knowledgeable way in the discussion on FB of all places. (His own FB page is HERE, though his Ivory-bill posts aren’t listed there.)

Perhaps he has a book on the way, or is just tired of sitting on the sidelines, or knows of new evidence coming along, or just trying to assist in preventing his own Agency from de-listing the species, but whatever the reason very glad indeed to see him adding his considerable input!

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