-- Ebay THIS! --

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Now for something totally different...

A post at BirdChat today detailed a Passenger Pigeon mount from a private collection being auctioned off at eBay! That got my attention, but could not locate it when I went to eBay's site -- I suspect either it ran into legal problems or got snapped up right away! In any event made me wonder what would pop up if I typed in "ivory-billed woodpecker" on the eBay search engine. So if anyone is interested there were 14 IBWO offerings up for auction, mostly artistic items, and additionally, at "eBay stores" another 40 items, mostly books, for sale.
And still, can't help but wonder if someone had a mounted Pass. Pigeon to auction off, how many folks out there have a stuffed IBWO somewhere in their attics...?
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-- "Hope Takes Flight" luncheon --

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As the winter IBWO search gets underway in a few weeks there will be yet another get-together/presentation to which the public is invited. The "Hope Takes Flight" luncheon will take place Fri. Nov, 4 in Atlanta, Ga. with Honorary Nature Conservancy Chair, former Pres. Jimmy Carter, giving the welcoming remarks via video. Members of the original search team will once again recount the Ivory-bill's re-discovery.
(There are actually several more presentations being given around the country between now and the winter search commencement, but I'll forego chronicling most of them unless something especially noteworthy is involved.)
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-- Some '60 Minutes' Followup --

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Joe Neal on the Arkansas bird listserv made this point today following CBS's '60 Minutes' IBWO report:

"Sunday night's broadcast on "60 Minutes" about the Ivory-billed Woodpecker
was, overall, a wonderful piece of journalism. When it was over, however, I
felt that there had been a BIG omission. So BIG that I think they missed
the story, or at least a key part of it. They missed the message that will
also be critical in the future.
I did not hear anything in the broadcast about how it was that the
Cache River escaped complete channelization, which would have led to the
loss of nearly 100% of the wetlands and bottomland forests. That is,
nowhere mentioned was Rex Hancock and the army of duck hunters, anglers,
and other conservationists, primarily natives of eastern Arkansas, who
fought the channelization to a standstill, then financed initial land
purchases for the refuge. Nowhere mentioned was the role of a key state
agency, Arkansas Game & Fish, and the public lands it has acquired for
public hunting access, which are now key parcels in the unfolding
Ivory-billed story. The story of the Ivory-bill, in my opinion, should
NEVER be told without including the amazing victory over the channelization
that set the stage. It's all about habitat, and it's all about what it
takes to save habitat.
In making these statements, I don't mean to rain on a good piece of
national journalism--I was thrilled to see it. Everything can't be included
in a brief available time. HOWEVER, in placing emphasis on the non-hunting
bird watchers (who were nicely featured in one part of the broadcast)
rather than on those who had a much more significant role in stopping the
channelization -- the "bird killing" duck hunters, etc -- the history gets
skewed, and lessons that need to emerge from such events don't get learned.
We million bird watchers could have been left out. The fight waged by
duck hunters should have been in."

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-- Not Much News... --

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The Ivory-bill has clearly hit the big-time of both science and pop culture, gracing the cover of Science Magazine AND being covered by CBS's '60 Minutes' all in a few months' time! Ed Bradley's '60 Minutes' piece was a nice, feel-good segment, but without much new news to pass along. (And though I enjoyed the '60 Minutes' report, I do worry just a bit if too much 'glamorization' of this bird in popular media may be deleterious in the long run, inspiring a cadre of publicity-minded searchers out there who don't necessarily have the species' best interest in mind.)
Also Mary Scott has posted 4 search reports from individual Ivory-bill seekers at her birdingAmerica.com site, which you may find of interest.
Cornell has likewise been collecting reports for the last several months, and it would be interesting to know if they intend to publish or summarize any of those at some point or are saving them for their own proprietary use?
In any event could be a few more slow news weeks ahead until more foliage drops from Southern forests and the winter search is well underway with many more searchers in the field trekking the vast areas involved.
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-- '60 Minutes' Feature! --

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This Sunday (10/16, 7 pm. EDT) CBS's '60 Minutes' will devote a segment to the search for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker in Arkansas. Be there!!
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-- Ivory-bill License Plate --

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Many states offer special "conservation" license plates at a higher fee, with the extra money going toward conservation efforts. Starting in January '06 the state of Arkansas will be offering one with... (surprise, surprise) the Ivory-billed Woodpecker stunningly gracing the plate. Quite an eye-catcher actually, beautifully done -- take a look here... and drool.
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-- Hope, Faith, and Responsibility --

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Clipped this interesting chunk of post from another's webpage:

"The old certainty that the bird [Ivory-bill] didn't exist was replaced by a fragile new knowledge that it did, news that arrived in a flood of scientists' tears -- the accounts of those who first saw the bird are drenched in shuddering emotion. Ornithologists everywhere were happy to have been so wrong for so long. (Imagine if political pundits were half so happy to admit error, how interesting political discourse might get...)
The reappearance of the woodpecker seems like a second chance -- a chance to expand its habitat, to get it right this time. Maybe that's what links the big surprises of 2005, this sense that there can be another unexpected round, the tenth inning in which the outcome could be different; that failure and devastation are not always final. Scott Simon, the Arkansas Nature Conservancy director who, with Cornell University scientists, led the search for the woodpecker, writes, "It is sometimes said that faith requires the suspension of belief. In this case, belief has been rewarded with reality. The fact is, the Ivory-billed Woodpecker survives. What a great outcome for decades of faith, hope, and prayers."
The woodpecker was a spectacular thing unto itself, but also a message that we don't really know what's out there, even in the forests of the not-very-wild southeast, let alone the ocean depths from which previously uncatalogued creatures regularly emerge. Late last month, University of Alaska marine biologists reported seven new species found during an expedition under the arctic ice that uncovered a much richer habitat with far more fauna than anticipated....
The woodpecker is a small story; the big environmental story of our time is about extinctions and endangerments, about creatures and habitats moving toward the very brink this bird came back from; but this small story suggests that there are still grounds to hope -- to doubt that we truly know exactly what is out there and what is possible. Hope is not history's Barcalounger, as is often thought: it requires you get back out there and protect that habitat or stop that war. It is not the same as optimism, the belief that everything will probably turn out all right despite your inactivity, the same kind of inactivity that despair begets. Hope involves a sense of possibility, but with it comes responsibility." ( -- Rebecca Solnit)

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-- Interlude... --

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"We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate for having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein do we err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with the extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings: they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth."

-- Henry Beston, Author (1888-1968)

...indeed, one can picture Ivory-bills moving, gliding 'finished and complete' with extended senses through the splendour of Arkansas bayous, cautiously 'living by voices' we mere humans can no longer hear... and would fail utterly to comprehend even if we could.
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-- April 1999 (Back to Pearl River) --

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Those who doubt the Arkansas Ivory-bill claims, of course also doubt David Kulivan's sighting of 2 Ivory-bills at Pearl River in 1999. Kulivan was grilled more than any IBWO claimant prior to the AR. reports. To my knowledge NO ONE ever came away from questioning David thinking a hoax or prank even might be involved; indeed all interviewers were impressed with David's apparent sincerity and genuineness. So tossing out the likelihood of a hoax we are left once again with but one other possibility: mistaken identity.
David claimed he watched the 2 birds forage for several minutes on different trees from different angles, as close as 20 yards, and gave an accurate description of them as male and female Ivory-bills. I don't believe anyone familiar with the woods and Pileateds (as David was) could see 2 birds the size of Pileateds THAT close for THAT long and mistake them for something else. So we are left with 2 basic possibilities:

1. David saw 2 Ivory-bills (possibly just passing through the area -- IBWOs were well known historically for travelling in pairs), or...

2. David saw two Pileateds, but since his description was totally wrong for them, he must've ALSO been wrong (in my opinion) about how long he saw them for, and how close he was to them (sincere, but WRONG)... in short, almost ALL the pertinent details of his report must somehow be wrong, and yet not deliberately so (not lying).

Which is really more likely; that he crossed paths with 2 Ivory-bills, or that he is sincere but in error on all details of his report? (Those whose minds are already pre-made up beforehand may answer one way, and those who treat each and every sighting as a separate case to be reviewed on its own merits may answer another.)
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-- For What It's Worth... --

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Last year the Rusty-throated Wren-babbler was found in India's mountains after almost 60 years of 'extinction.'
In 2003 the Long-legged Warbler of those vast, difficult-to-search Fiji Islands was re-discovered after just 105+ years on the lam.
And also in 2003 the New Zealand Storm Petrel, missing for a mere 150 years was re-discovered flying about it's usual part of the world.
So after the Ivory-bill who will be next?
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-- Over the Years, Sightings Galore??? --

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People often don't realize how many sightings of Ivory-bills have been turned in over the decades. Some folks have the impression there are but a couple of unverified reports over the last 60 years and that's it (...no wonder they buy into a notion of IBWO extinction). Most IBWO literature mentions at most just a couple dozen Ivory-bill claims since the mid-40's that have some credibility, but the actual number of reports in that time (that could not be quickly dismissed as hoaxes or mis-identifications) are many times that number -- only the MOST credible ones make their way into the literature. On-the-other-hand, so far as I'm aware the Ivory-bill's contemporary, the Passenger Pigeon, has had virtually no credible reports since the 1930's (indeed few since it's supposed extinction in 1914), while reports of Ivory-bills are a regular occurrence during that time. If mistaken identifications are such a common occurrence one must wonder why have there not been dozens of reports of Passenger Pigeons over the decades, a species with a far wider-ranging habitat than the IBWO and one that could easily be confused with various other birds given a quick glance? Yet P. Pigeon sightings lie dormant while IBWOs show up again and again and again...

BUUUT... what has always intrigued this writer most is NOT the many IBWO sightings turned in over time, but the likely dozens more sightings NEVER turned in at all. They fall into the following categories:

1. Birders who believe they have seen Ivory-bills but never reported it for fear of the scoffing, jeering, or intimidation they would face.

2. Birders who believe they have seen Ivory-bills (might even have photographic proof), but who believe it UNethical to report such a finding, for fear of the potential havoc brought upon the birds.

3. Birders who have had fleeting 'low-qualiity' glances at big black-and-white woodpeckers in woods and automatically shrugged it off as Pileateds, when in fact they had observed IBWOs.

4. Hunters, fisherman, backwoodsmen, who have seen IBWOs, but didn't have a clue what they were seeing (nor care) and so never reported it.

5. Hunters, fishermen, etc. who have seen IBWOs, and knew EXACTLY what they were seeing, and deliberately chose NOT to report it for fear of Government intervention and tight regulation of the land involved.

My guess is we would be stunned if we knew the actual number of human-Ivorybill encounters in the last 60 years, and it would leave little doubt but that the species survives today in remote corners of the American Southeast.
Has any other bird species EVER generated so many reports over a 60-year period and still been written off as extinct by so many? I doubt it.
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-- Come November... --

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The search for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker in the 'Rhode-Island-sized' Big Woods area of AR. begins anew in early November. Cornell is promising to send updates of the search efforts to those who join their "e-News" group (free) at: http://www.birds.cornell.edu/
Also, David Luneau reports that he, and possibly other searchers, will be posting field notes at: http://nature.org/ivorybill

All searchers under Cornell's auspices will be under 'confidentiality' agreements, so there are likely limitations to precisely what info may be reported, but apparently the public will be kept apprised of at least general progress. Also, keep in mind, searches will take place in several other states besides AR.
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-- The April 2004 Sightings --

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Some folks have wondered what might account for the small flurry of Ivory-bill sightings that took place in April 2004 at Cache River with only a few additional sightings either before or since. The bird seen then was generally ID'd as a male. One possible explanation is that a pair of IBWOs successfully nested that season, in which case April could easily have been a month of much chick-feeding. The female often stays at the nest the majority of the day, while the male is out foraging for food for his new family (and incubates at night). By May/June the chicks could have fledged and chick-rearing subsided. If nest attempts of the adult pair then failed in 2005 such foraging activity far afield would be diminished and the pair might stay much closer to their home/roost area (which could be miles from outer feeding areas) than the previous season. This winter, with many more volunteers/searchers on hand, a far wider area can be searched more adequately.

It would be interesting to know if the bird spotted in April '04 flew off in seemingly random directions when approached by sighters or consistently took off in a certain basic direction -- when confronted during the nesting season, birds out foraging often fly off in a direction OPPOSITE the direction the nest is in (a sort of misdirection for any pursuers). If Elvis consistently took off in say a northerly line-of-flight it might imply a nest-site somewhere south of an approaching observer. Just a possibility...
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-- Of Ivory-bills and Nobel Prizes --

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Maybe worth noting: A couple days ago Larry Marshall and Robin Warren won the 2005 Nobel Prize in Medicine for their discovery almost 25 years ago that a bacterium helicobacter pylori was the cause of most stomach ulcers and gastritis. At the time (when it was widely believed ulcers were caused by over-acidity) peers called the contention "preposterous," since bacteria obviously couldn't survive in stomach acid. The findings and discoverers were shunned and denigrated, and it took many years for Marshall and Warren to prove themselves right and the skeptics wrong. Today researchers are looking at what role microbes may play in many other inflammatory ailments, no longer scoffing at this one-time un-establishment notion. Medicine is a field full of instances of entrenched 'accepted knowledge' being overturned in time. So too... field biology.
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-- Of Searches and Roosts --

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"The daily activities of the woodpeckers [IBWOs] during the non-breeding season follow a definite pattern. Beginning about sunrise, they feed and move actively during the early morning; they are quiet during the middle of the day, feed again in late afternoon, and then end the day by going to roost about dusk. Ivory-bills roost singly in holes, and very frequently use the same hole night after night."

That's in part what James Tanner concluded about Ivory-bill daily behavior from observations of his Singer Tract sample. Clearly, the best possibility for a good photo or video during the winter months would come by finding a roost hole for an individual. Easier said than done. Again, according to Tanner, roost-holes typically "were from forty to fifty feet from the ground... did not face in any particular direction and were not located for protection from rain or wind." Roost-holes could appear as freshly-drilled or olden holes. Only size and shape (roughly oval) gives any hint at all to a possible active hole and in an area as vast as the Big Woods that's not much to go on.
One search technique involves lining up a string of observers 50-100 yards apart along an imaginary line bisecting some large general area of interest about 45 mins. before dusk and letting them sit/stand silently watching for birds returning overhead from either direction back to a roost area wherever that may be; the direction any birds come from obviously indicating a potential feeding area and the direction they are flying toward representing a roost area. And then follow up the next day with that piece of information in mind. If no birds-of-interest are observed then the next evening attempt to form a new line bisecting and running perpendicular to the first night's line to catch birds that flew perpendicular to, instead of across, the first night's string of watchers; again all this is easier said-than-done in deep woods/swamp... if it was easy we wouldn't be here conjecturing about it!
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-- BioScience Commentary --

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A reader drew my attention to this commentary on the Arkansas IBWO discovery by zoologist Walter Koenig in the Aug. 2005 BioScience Magazine (Vol. 55, No.8).
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-- Population bottlenecks --

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The following post from an "Eric" on another bird forum is of some relevance here:
(I didn't realize either that the Whooping Crane had gotten down to 14 individuals!)

"I just did a literature search on this and found that I was wrong. As of 1938 there were only 14 whooping cranes left, not 40. As of 1997 there were 160 in the original wild migrant population, 100 in captivity and 73 in a reintroduced wild population. This number is higher today. I got these numbers from an article by Glen, Stephan and Braun (Effect of a population bottleneck on whooping crane mitochondrial DNA variation. 1999 Conservation Biology vol 13, #5 1097-1107). By comparing mt DNA sequences from museum specimens to those of extant birds they determined that of 6 haplotypes (analogous to "families") existing pre-bottleneck, only one formerly rare haplotype exists today. In other words most of the genetic diversity that once existed is gone today.

On the brighter side of this the birds are recovering despite being highly inbred. Similar findings of low genetic variation in species that have very small effective population sizes have been reported for desert pupfishes. The best known of these is the Devils Hole pupfish (Cyprinodon diabolis) which lives in a water filled limestone fissure near Death Valley. What is significant about this species is that it has an effective population size of less than 200 (the population varies seasonally) and it generally lives less than 2 years. This last point is important since inbreeding depression is a function of number of generations, not time per se.

Taken together, these results imply that inbreeding depression does not always occur in formerly bottlenecked or chronically small populations. It's really probably a luck of the draw whether or not individuals that make it through the bottleneck harbor really deleterious mutations or not.

Back to the subject at hand, it would seem that there is reason to hope that IBW can make some semblance of a recovery, assuming that a population still exists."

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-- Ivory-bills by the Numbers --

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Okay all you math geeks (and anyone else) follow me on this:

1. Let's start with a population of 16 Ivory-bills.

2. Let's say 25% of all IBWOs were killed by hunters/collectors before they could breed -- MUCH higher % than most would propose -- but this gets our starting population down to 12 immediately.

3. Let's say the average lifespan of an Ivory-bill is 10 yrs. -- at the LOW end of most estimates.

4. Let's further presume they can't breed for their first 2 years or their last 2 years -- leaving them 6 breeding years. And let's further say, for the heck of it and for reasons unknown, they routinely fail one of those years, leaving us with just 5 breeding yrs. in a lifetime for the average pair (probably way short of the truth, but whatever).

5. IBWOs were known to generally lay 3-5 eggs per nest, though often for reasons not fully understood, they only averaged raising 2 chicks.

6. So with 5 breeding years a typical pair might produce as few as 10 offspring in their entire lives. Let's say (being further conservative) that HALF of these, for whatever reasons, don't make it to adulthood. Now a pair of IBWO produces just 5 offspring in their lives.

7. We started with 16 IBWOs, reduced to 12 birds or 6 pair (for the sake of argument). These 6 pair, selecting very conservative values, could've easily produced 30 offspring in their lives (if they lived longer, bred more years, raised a higher percentage of their eggs, or got shot less, the number only goes UP!). Yet another HALF of those offspring would somehow have to fail to live/breed before you would be below replacement value for the original 16 birds. And for the species to go extinct of course you MUST repeatedly get below replacement value. I think this is difficult (not impossible) to do using reasonable guesstimates. The key of course is the IBWO's longevity and the fact that it was not often predated by anything other than Man (small songbirds that only live 3-5 years, and are easily predated or nest parasitized, can suffer extinction much more easily). Others will argue that habitat destruction caused near complete termination of IBWO breeding (in fact it's virtually the ONLY argument they can make), for if each pair merely produced 3 young in their lives they had more than (by 50%) replaced themselves. It's difficult to imagine them NOT reaching this figure in 10 years, let alone the 15-20 yrs. that most folks estimate for their longevity.
In short, given the end of hunting pressure on this bird, the increase in habitat ever since the 50s or late 40s, and every creature's normal 'will to live and breed', I think it is EASY to account for any population remaining in Tanner's time still being with us today (there is NOTHING EXTRAORDINARY about that AT ALL!). Yes, it is possible that if Tanner's low-ball estimate of 24 birds remaining in the 40's was precise the species just may have run into a "genetic bottleneck" (as some argue) that could have doomed them, but this is not inevitable, and if there were actually 50 to 200 birds left as many believe, I think the above math makes it unlikely the species could have disappeared in a mere 60 years. But hey, you do your own math...
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