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It is said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result…. know the feeling!… Even though some folks have tried different things, new technologies have come along, and a variety of ideas get floated, basically for 80 years we’ve been returning to the same places, traipsing around in similar ways, and hoping to encounter Ivorybills. Any number of names come up over and over again: Atchafalaya, Apalachicola, Congaree, Santee, Big Thicket, Tensas, Big Cypress, Pearl River, Pascagoula, Okeefenokee, and more recently Big Woods and Choctawhatchee… and many places near to these. Places large enough and inhospitable enough that no one individual or even group can ever truly accomplish a thorough ground search, but nonetheless places so repeatedly visited over decades that one might hope/expect more definitive encounters (both visual and auditory) than so far produced. If the species is in any of these places their density must be so low to account for such evasiveness, yet still high enough to allow for successful undetected ongoing reproduction over decades??? Possible. The other, less-talked-of, and seemingly less-likely possibility is that the birds, over time, moved on to other locales NOT closely associated with their former “range” and therefore little searched. Over the decades “sightings” or claims (not always very credible, but not 100% dismissible) have come from east and west Tennessee, southeast Missouri, southern Illinois and Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, Virginia, north Alabama and Georgia, and other places that aren’t taken too seriously because of our historical bias for Tanner’s derived southern range. And given the commitment/energy required, if you’re going to search at all, may as well invest it in habitat that history seems to favor and occasional “hits” do emerge from.
Hopefully, if IBWOs are ever confirmed the location they are found in will tell us something about where else we need to scour more. IBWOs found in Florida may mean one thing, while Ivorybills in the Big Thicket or the Congaree, might mean something else…. and oh my gosh, IBWOs in east or west Tennessee or southern Illinois or even north Georgia would mean a whole new ballgame (but also perhaps explain why so much of the prior searching has been for nought)! Unlike ground-based animals (i.e., most wildlife) birds can fly/move long distances relatively quickly, oblivious to boundaries as perceived by humans, and establish themselves in new locales so long as a few conditions are met. But, what are the chances…?
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