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New year, so feel like I oughta post something!... Several damp, gray, cold days had me stuck inside at the computer recently, just looking at or playing around with a few numbers. I may be way off on some of these, so feel free to correct if you have more updated or accurate information...
As best I could roughly estimate (from online sources):
National Audubon Society has ~600,000 members (I assume most of those are North American, but don’t really know the breakdown)
American Birding Association (ABA) membership is around 20,000 (again don’t know the breakdown worldwide), although this figure seemed oddly low to me??? (so someone got a better figure?)
Cornell Lab of Ornithology ~75,000 members
worldwide estimate for those on eBird: 200,000, probably with at least a quarter of those North American?
…again, all verrrry rough figures, so feel free to correct... but anyway, needless to say, a lot of folks interested to varying degrees in birds.
Finally, on social media there are well over 6000 folks following sites devoted to the Ivory-billed Woodpecker; though not necessarily all are IBWO enthusiasts. Some of those would be full-fledged skeptics who only follow along to monitor what is being stated (or misstated) on such sites; and some are folks who think the species is most likely extinct, but still hold out some slim hope. Others are simply interested in cryptids in general, so include IBWO among their follows. The remainder, maybe perhaps 4000, could be “true believers” or so-called “IBWO-truthers” who think (or even feel certain) that the species exists. Worth noting though that most of those 4000-or-so are almost certainly NOT serious or long-time, experienced birders (some are, but not most)… as indicated if one follows much of the serious birding community on a site like Twitter or a birding forum the derision for IBWO-belief remains pretty broad-based and growing. The treatment of Matt Courtman by his own Louisiana active-birding community is another indication, as is the treatment, for that matter, of almost any claimant by the wider birding community (…that treatment being anything from shunning to snickering at, and a whole lot of eye-rolling). In large part both the 'believer' and 'skeptic' communities reside now in their own self-contained, self-reinforcing bubbles.
So once again, unless new, significant evidence is introduced (and, that could happen!…) the USFWS bureaucracy will soon be weighing the voices of a small, highly vocal group versus an increasingly impatient throng of knowledgeable birders and conservationists… and making a decision… a decision that will have no bearing whatsoever on whether the IBWO actually exists, but could have bearing on the perceptions of any few remaining who are still neutral on the subject... while no doubt also spurring further contentious debate over the "evidence" that already exists (such as it is). It would be great to be a fly on the wall at the USFWS proceedings/discussions. I have no idea how many folks are in on those talks, nor whether their final decision must be unanimous or simply majority-rule. Meanwhile, IF an IBWO nestsite is to be found we are approaching the time of year it ought happen (...as I've probably said for 16 years in a row now ;)
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ADDENDUM 1/7:
Just a quick note, since Dwight Norris on Facebook just posted this nice clip of a Pileated at work:
https://youtube.com/shorts/6N0dxqfxLMU?feature=share
I used to get pics sent to me, with some regularity, of trees with multiple large woodpecker holes, but just so folks know, this is completely typical for PIWO and not at all typical of IBWO. Examples from the Web:
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