-- Chasing Another Ghost --

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All people have dreams… some dream of power or riches or castles… some dream of big woodpeckers . . . . .

With so little Ivory-bill news to report I'll go ahead and post a blurb about Tim Gallagher's new volume on his quest (with Martjan Lammertink) for the Imperial Woodpecker, "Imperial Dreams" (I believe it is to be available in bookstores within the next 2 weeks, with its gorgeous, artsy, almost gaudy cover!):

This is a book partly centered on adventure, partly centered on a bird (known to Spanish-speaking natives as the "pitoreal"), and very largely centered on an obsession/compulsion! It is likely Gallagher's best offering yet. Certainly all Ivory-bill aficionados will enjoy it; and probably most birders, naturalists, conservationists as well. Still, having said that, those who never found Tim's prior book, "The Grail Bird," convincing, or for whom he simply lost all credibility because of that book, might not be moved much by the current volume (in which he does briefly recount the Arkansas Ivory-bill story, but gives little hint of the controversy and perceived debunking that followed).
It will be interesting to see how well this book sells to a broader audience of non-birders, who may scratch their heads at the whole premise… why would anyone risk life-and-limb to chase after a big bird that may be long-gone… how does one explain such a quest, or compulsion, to the non-initiated?

The volume is chock-full of risky adventure, man-made and natural history, fascinating details, word-of-mouth anecdotes, and also very sad accounts of lost possibilities, of human senselessness, the wanton killing (shooting and poisoning) of Imperials, and avaricious destruction of their habitat. Very sad… very very sad… But Gallagher is a gifted story-teller to be sure, be it hype or accurate history.

I won't even attempt a summary of the wide-ranging content... I sometimes felt tired just reading of the travails that Gallagher and Lammertink endured. But I will mention that my favorite chapter is chapter 9, covering the expeditions of Chicago Pennsylvania dentist William Rhein to find and eventually document an Imperial in the 1950s, and Gallagher and Lammertink's preparations to follow-up on the Rhein findings. Much of this storyline has already been covered on the internet; for starters see here: http://www.allaboutbirds.org/Page.aspx?pid=2314 
Still, such stories of human infatuation, and fervid human connection to nature transfix me (Rhein's video documentation of the species is the ONLY film of an Imperial ever known.)
I didn't personally care as much for the more suspenseful, exciting, even violence-prone chapters of the book, though I suspect those will appeal to many readers for whom 'excitement' is a desired component for a good read.

Another interesting section comes in chapter 11 when, almost out of nowhere, Gallagher proceeds to tell the back-story behind Martjan Lammertink and his wife-to-be. It has virtually nothing to do with the main thrust of the book, and I won't give away any of it here, except to say that it is a testament to Gallagher's story-telling skills that he manages to shoehorn in this wonderful little human interest story amidst the larger tale he is telling. But the volume is peppered throughout with interesting passages, more pertinent to the story at-hand.

Oddly, reading Tim's book reminds me once again (as some other Ivory-bill matters have done) of the movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." In that film innumerable individuals are drawn in unison to an out-of-the-way locale by a knowledge or intuition they can't understand or pinpoint, of the impending arrival of aliens from elsewhere in space. 
Those of us who have believed in the Ivory-bill's persistence for decades (often since childhood) can't explain the intuition or source of confidence, that impels us to that conclusion (it isn't just wishful thinking), in the face of what so many view as "empirical" evidence otherwise. Intuition, though, is a powerful force in life… and... in science. The problem arises in distinguishing the sometimes thin line between valid, inspired intuition and irrational, pressing obsession. (I won't claim enough objectivity to separate the two with certainty!) Gallagher believes some Imperials still exist, even though he never found them, nor even much direct evidence for their presence… I don't assume him wrong…

In the end though, a large reservation still hovers: for one can't help but wonder if Gallagher's time, energy, and dollars wouldn't have been better spent in continued searching for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, that he helped resurrect over a half-dozen years ago. Some of us believe there remains a better-than-even chance the Ivory-bill will yet be verified, but IF it is NOT, Mr. Gallagher's future reputation may well be that, not of a good birder nor ornithologist, nor even a fine writer or interesting naturalist, nor exciting adventurer… but rather, simply as a major teller-of-tall-tales… a cherry-picker of information, with a penchant for embellishment… and… THAT... would be a shame.
(Meanwhile, we're still waiting for Cornell to publish or make public a predictably overdue summary of their aborted IBWO search.)

With all that said, I have no hesitation recommending the book… with the proviso that each reader will have to decide for themselves if it is simply a stirring story from a great spinner of tales… or, indeed another chronicle of real, if slender, hope for yet another beautiful, incredible, and tragic creature.
As Jerry Jackson... and Fox Mulder would no doubt be want to say, "The truth is out there."

You can also check out Jim Williams' review of "Imperial Dreams" here:

http://blog.aba.org/2013/04/pitoreal.html

Also, Gallagher shares some of the book at his blog to promote it:

http://imperial-dreams.blogspot.com/

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-- 1967, Texas, John Dennis --

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A member of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker Researchers' Forum has posted a number of the interesting original 1967 reports of John V. Dennis concerning sightings of the IBWO in the Big Thicket of Texas:

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0BwTmMmXDrBKnYzNoTnRBWDlwVDg&usp=sharing

You may want to start with the 33-page "Final" report to get an overview, but the other (shorter) weekly reports are also definitely interesting to peruse. Wonderful historical documents.

Unfortunately, Paul Sykes' lengthy 1968 follow-up report is cited but not shown in full The Sykes 1968 document DOES now come up in its entirety; the first time I clicked on it it didn't (a couple of the more recent follow-ups from John Arvin and Fred Collins are also included).
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-- One Reporter's Tale --

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 A semi-interesting... if rather disappointing concluding take from an Arkansas reporter:

http://www.couriernews.net/story/1946877.html

She's wrong about the Ivory-bill being bigger than a Bald Eagle, and wrong about it being the model for Woody Woodpecker... and I suspect wrong about more... but, oh well. 

Not certain what specifically she is referencing when she mentions in the first line a "decision... very quietly made by a group of renowned scientists" that brought the Arkansas search to an end, and "officially declared the Ivory-billed Woodpecker extinct"?  
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-- IBWO Nests Difficult To Find In 2010… AND, In 1905 --

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A bit ago a poster at Ivory-bill Researchers Forum linked to an old but nice IBWO account from R.D. Hoyt in Florida from 1905, and another poster later transcribed it to the site. It's an interesting read, and I was hoping to put it together with some other passages addressing the historical wariness and evasiveness of IBWOs for a longer post here, but just don't have the time to pull that all together right now, so won't delay any longer sharing the original Hoyt piece with any who haven't already seen it. It begins as follows:
"Among all the feathered tribe [ if ] there is a bird whose nest is more difficult to locate than that of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker it belongs to some species with which I am unacquainted," and later references the Ivory-bill as the "shyest and most cunning" of all bird species (...like we don't all know that by now ;-)). Check it out:

http://www.ibwo.net/forum/showpost.php?p=6034&postcount=116

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-- Dream On? --

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Duly noted, Cornell's Tim Gallagher started a blog this month, "Imperial Dreams," apparently to coincide with the upcoming (April) release of his newest book (same title) on his latest obsession/quest for the presumed-extinct Imperial Woodpecker of Mexico.
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-- A New Year --

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I don't usually bother linking anymore to summary Ivory-bill pieces that re-hash the situation without adding something new to the discussion, but I'll break that rule to get the New Year underway with this pleasant piece from Traildirt blog:

http://traildirt.com/ivory-billed-woodpecker-gone-or-just-forgotten/

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-- In Time For Christmas... --

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Well, this is different...

A Colorado politician (and life-long birdwatcher) has self-published a novel (geared to young people) entitled "AVES: The Age Of Engagement," with the Ivory-billed Woodpecker as a principal character:

http://www.timescall.com/lifestyles/entertainment/ci_22191534/former-lafayette-mayor-chris-berry-releases-first-novel

The book is available through Amazon here:

http://www.amazon.com/AVES-The-Engagement-C-J-Berry/dp/1477437495

or through its own website here:

http://avesthebook.blogspot.com/

As long as I'm mentioning Ivory-bill novels, I'll re-mention Tom Gallant's "The Lord God Bird" from earlier in the year, which I did read and mostly enjoy (and reviewed HERE):

http://tinyurl.com/cwrkufr

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-- In the Shadow of Mason Spencer --

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Credibility….

When David Kulivan claimed an encounter with 2 Ivory-bills in the Louisiana woods in 1999, some doubters found his verbal/written reports TOO good… TOO on-the-mark… TOO accurate… in short, his details sounded TOO much like they were lifted out of a book instead of being a spontaneous, accurate recounting of what his eyes actually saw. 
As best I recall, Kulivan admitted that after seeing the birds he consulted a field guide to confirm what he believed he'd just observed, and later made his report… many feared that by the time he verbally gave his account, he unintentionally blurred, in his mind, his actual experience with that description read from a book.
I've always leaned toward believing Kulivan's take, but it is a tough call (and for a lot more reasons than the one I'm pointing out above), and I understand why Kulivan's all-too-excellent account makes some people nervous.

Indeed, there can actually be a fine line between Ivory-bill claims that are discounted because the details are too poor… and those that are discounted because the details are TOO perfect (too out-of-the-book). There is SO much IBWO information now readily accessible that the ease of concocting a "believable" sounding story out of whole cloth is great. 
Jerry Jackson used to relate the story of a lady in Mississippi who's sighting tale sounded credible to him because she described the call of the birds as sounding like geese honking -- he'd not heard anyone use that description, and it was clearly her own interpretation, but it made a lot of sense; made her sound credible. No non-birder, on their own, would likely say an IBWO call sounded like "kent" or "henk" -- those are strictly pneumonics you pick up from the literature, but the comparison to geese was more unique (...just as a non-birder would never say they heard an owl in the woods call out something like "who cooks for you," except by getting that out of a book).
My point in all this is simply that "credibility" (especially of non-birders) is hard to judge, and often in the eye of the beholder. At this point, in the IBWO arena, I suspect even the credibility of USFWS and Cornell is pretty much in tatters for many in the wider birding community. And despite 1000s of excellent birders (including famous ones) in this country, I literally don't know who, outside of David Sibley, could report an Ivory-bill with no accompanying photo/video, and immediately have widespread believability. NO ONE, I suspect.

Over the last 6 years many anecdotal reports have been sent my way… sometimes from sighters themselves, sometimes from people informing me about a sighter they know of. In two instances I sent stories along to "higher ups" saying essentially, "ehhh, maybe this is worth checking out a little further…" In all the rest of the cases, I only needed to ask a few questions to conclude the tales lacked credibility and details (that doesn't always necessarily mean the stories had NO credibility, it just means they lacked enough to warrant pursuing). 

An hour after the Dan Rainsong story broke I wrote that I regarded it as bogus; some folks emailed me saying I should let the story play out, wait for more info and specifics; that I was reacting too quickly… but it only took 30 minutes of Googling on the Web to find enough red flags and incriminating oddities to utter an opinion that the story lacked even an iota of credibility, and was going to be a distraction and time-waster. The only way one could take the press release seriously was to be too lazy to research it on the internet.  
An earlier episode by the fellow known as "TheMagicGuy" in Florida similarly was quickly discounted by most of us because again a little websleuthing made his story (which also sounded a bit too perfect and too bookish) seem unlikely. And when the Steve Sheridan tale became public I began asking questions in backchannels because on so many counts it too lacked a solid ring of authenticity, to be taken seriously for so long. And MOST of the stories I get through email are even more obviously lacking in cred (…BUT, a tiny tiny residue do have substance).

I bring up this whole discussion now because of the prior post and comments to it. Without photos/video, claims of credible IBWO stories are largely meaningless to the wider birding community… been there, done that, 1000 times. I specifically asked if any official agency was involved with the "interview" of the current LA. claimant because obviously any story told by Fred or Frank, or Mary, Larry, Gary, Harry, or Albert Einstein for that matter, needs to be vetted further by others… and then others… and then others, to attain any traction at all (unless or until there are photos).

...But, BUT, BUUUUT… having said all this, the single greatest error I live in fear of, is what I call the "Mason Spencer error" -- Mason Spencer was a non-credible reporter of Ivory-bills (I won't repeat his story here), and as a result one of these precious specimens died for him to verify his claim... I probably would have scoffed at him myself. In the end, just because someone is NOT credible, does NOT automatically mean every given claim they make is UNtrue. It is NON-birders, with less than stellar experience, knowledge and background, who spend far more time in IBWO-type habitat than skilled birders -- percentage-or-probability-wise, it is more likely a NON-birder will encounter Ivory-bills than a birder. And so while I have no patience for hoaxes and pranks, and trust my instincts on those strongly, I always carry some lingering fear of premature judgments…

In short, I fully understand why skeptics express doubt at a story like the latest familiar-sounding one from LA. I'm dubious of it myself (for many reasons)… but, it is none-the-less, the type or form of story I can't write off out-of-hand... because it likely won't ever be a David Sibley or any other expert who resolves this saga… it is at least as likely to be a Mason Spencer or Gene Sparling type figure, who no one saw coming.
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-- From Louisiana --

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Received a letter yesterday from Louisiana searchers with information they wish to pass along for the benefit of any other active searchers. The verbatim letter below:

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"We have just returned from several areas in LA and MS where we observed drought habitat conditions.  This has triggered a good oak mast crop.  We recently received, credible, repeat site reports from LA in an oak dominated ridge in a residential area, and after visiting believe that Ivory-bills could be disproportionately in oak dominated, higher areas near the first bottoms or second bottoms during the upcoming seasons.

Fred Virrazzi, Franklin Wiley and myself, a botanist, were camping in the tupelo-cypress dominated first bottoms when we recorded no insects under several square feet of bark peeled from dead boles of multiple species.  Internally to six inches, the standing dead wood was also dry.

We were skeptical of any sightings in a residential area but upon videoed interviews, review of field notes and ecological observations we surmised these were likely good sightings in a wooded residential area surrounded on three sides by first bottoms.  Most importantly the 300 acre area was a ridge, perpendicular to a large river with tens of thousands of acres of decent bottomland and this higher strip had many Live Oaks and other species producing mast.  The observer was very reputable; the bird flew away upon detection of slight movement the two times it was observed perched.

Fred noted that mast attracted Ivory-bills to Wadmacon Island, SC in the 1930’s and that  historical literature describes it as an Ivory-billed food resource.  In modern times Guthrie and Everett noted a possible connection between mast and Ivory-bills. 

In drought years borer insects can be harder to find and acorn crops can be heavy; it could be a time to look for birds in higher, wooded areas near the bottomlands.

Thank You,

Elizabeth Peck
National Biodiversity Parks"

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 I have inquired of them 1) if there's any chance the "videoed interviews" would be publicly available at some point (or, alternatively, if anyone from Cornell, LSU, or USFWS have viewed them), and 2) if they're able to be any more specific about the LA. location they are referring to, but have not yet heard back. Perhaps they can respond here in the comments at some point...?
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-- Rarer Than Ivory-bills??? --

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Recently someone sent me a photo of a partially "leucistic" Pileated Woodpecker, in this instance a specimen with a slightly enlarged white wing patch showing. Over the years from time-to-time readers have sent along such pics of Pileateds with various small white body patches present, though I've never found such examples very interesting. What does interest me though (as I've repeatedly noted before) are Pileateds with a great prevalence of white showing on their bodies. There have been several of these discovered over the years in different locales (including the Big Woods of Arkansas). A Google image search brings up some of them:

http://tinyurl.com/aul2uhv

Always worth keeping such examples in mind, not because they would likely be mistaken for Ivory-bills, but because they hint at the possibility of specimens that truly do have a large, more defined, white (symmetrical) shield-like pattern that might mimic an Ivory-bill. I'm still waiting for the day when someone gets a photo of such a bird (as Noel Snyder actually reported seeing decades ago in Florida, but didn't get a photograph). I suspect such birds truly do exist and possibly even get mistaken for IBWOs… but, I also suspect, for now, that they are rarer than Ivory-bills.
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-- FWIW --

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David Luneau notes (Oct. 18) receipt of a recent sighting he seems to feel of some interest. No details provided as yet, however; not even as to general location:

http://www.ibwo.org/index.php

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-- "Potential Source of Confusion" --

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I'll pass along this note from a reader expressing "a potential source of confusion" that searchers ought be alerted to… the Black-bellied Whistling Duck.

This species is expanding it's territory further into Southeastern states, and the e-mailer notes that in the case of a brief glance from behind, the bird would flash black-and-white wings, have duck-like flight, be the right size, found in a swamp, and possibly taking off from a tree; moreover a typical field guide range map wouldn't necessarily lead one to consider this species.
The writer sends along the below photo (of a BBWD) to give some sense of what a sudden escape flight might appear like:

...For obvious reasons, 'fleeting glances' of birds flying away are not likely at this point, to get much serious consideration as Ivory-bills from the birding community; and better, longer looks are likely to rule out BBWD and other waterfowl... but good to keep all possibilities in mind.
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-- Long Hot Summer --

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Have only heard from a couple of folks who spent any time looking for IBWOs during what may have been the worst, hottest, buggiest, most uncomfortable summer on recent record in the Southeast (never a great time to look for IBWOs, even under good conditions). If anyone further cares to note the location of any search time spent in the last few months feel free to  (for example I presume at least some searching continues in the Big Woods, yet I don't recall anyone mentioning it to me via email for quite awhile. Also, if anyone still has automatic remote cameras up & running, or plans to re-deploy in winter, I'd be curious to know that as well, just to have a better sense of what locales continue to receive some monitoring).

December-March is probably the far more propitious time for searching... we'll see how many man-hours and reports, if any, the upcoming winter produces. Mike Collins notes that he hopes to have a very active search season in his Pearl River domain, probably beginning around January, but also says this may be his last season, with tentative plans to return to his Wash. D.C. work office in 2013: http://www.fishcrow.com/winter13.html
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-- Jurassic Whatever… --

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I s'pose I have some ambivalent feelings about this, but iconoclast Stewart Brand (with others) has a current project underway, called "Revive and Restore" to bring back-to-life various extinct species, using modern genetic techniques. Although their current focus is on the Passenger Pigeon, both the Ivory-billed and Imperial Woodpeckers are among other candidate species being considered.

http://rare.longnow.org/projects.html

http://blog.longnow.org/02012/07/16/revive-and-restore/

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-- Replay --

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For any who may be interested, someone named John Deamond has pieced together this video of various IBWO-related clips (there seems to be no accompanying audio). The first minute-or-so are some very quick clips, mostly zoomed, that have made claims of showing IBWOs (some from YouTube, some from Mike Collins, 1 from Geoff Hill's group). The next 11 minutes are various replayings of the Luneau clip from Arkansas, and the last minute is some superfluous animation:

IBWO Triptych from john deamond on Vimeo.

I don't find anything distinctly helpful or new here, but pass it along in the event others may wish to play with it. Also, don't know any particulars about John's project beyond his own statement that it is "...about extinct birds and how the events surrounding and following their demise reflect issues with how we deal with the natural environment."

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-- Hope (...and Reports) Remains --

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Minnesota birder Jim Williams voices his continued hope for the Ivory-bill in this current short column:

http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/homegarden/blogs/162911316.html

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-- Random Thoughts on a Hot Summer Night --

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Often I let such things go, though sometimes they wear on me a bit… mislabeled pictures of an "Ivory-billed Woodpecker" (with a photo of a Pileated) continually appear on the Web, simply adding to the widespread confusion that stiiiiill exists over these 2 species even after all this time. 

(Ivory-billed Woodpecker... NNNOT!!)

Mislabeled pics on the Web are especially egregious because of the way they are picked up by others and transferred along, so even if the originating site eventually corrects their depiction, the inaccurate picture may have already traveled on, unchecked, repeatedly far and wide. 
Likewise, I've lost track of how many videos on YouTube have appeared claiming "Ivory-billed Woodpecker" for a bird that is clearly something other (and there are other Web video sites that I don't track closely enough to even know how often the same mistake occurs elsewhere).
 It's even more disconcerting that many of these claims emanate from poor habitat or simply inappropriate states (New York, Washington state, Arizona…). Although, most of these cases are probably sincere mistakes, it's also clear that some are instances of prankish individuals wishing only to mess with other people's minds. Getting a good, clear sighting, let alone photo of an Ivory-bill, in good habitat remains a daunting task.

Even National Geographic (a site many would presume credible) for years carried a lead photo of a Pileated Woodpecker above a 2006 Web article on the IBWO search, entitled "The Ghost Bird"… a photo that got picked up and used by others referencing it as an "Ivory-billed Woodpecker." Is it any wonder that IBWOs continue to get ID'd mistakenly in the field by novices and ill-informed individuals, sometimes literally relying on an incorrect picture seen on the Web… or, is it any wonder that others now pretty much automatically dismiss any and all such claims… still, each and every claim and picture coming forth must be looked at individually and adjudged on its own merits… not judged or generalized about on the basis of all that has preceded it.

Science is not (nor ever has been) the pristine activity some uncritically view it as. In recent months many 'scandals' (of varying seriousness) in scientific publications have emerged. One of the most widely followed has been the so-called "arseniclife" or "arsenicgate" story in which a NASA-based study claimed the discovery of a bacterial life-form employing arsenic in the place of phosphorous in its DNA (a monumental biology finding). One likes to imagine that NASA pretty well knows what it's doing scientifically, but following the much-ballyhooed announcement a near immediate firestorm of Internet-generated criticism began throwing cold water on the claims. For now, the original authors continue to defend their results, even while refutations have been published and few seem to take the initial claimants very seriously. 
It is reminiscent of the 1989 Fleischmann/Pons report of creating tabletop cold fusion in the lab, which was likewise quickly shot down by the majority of the scientific community. Mistakes (...or merde ;-)) happen. There have been many instances of fraud in science in recent times; these last two examples aren't instances of that… just mistakes, over-anxiousness, and possibly poor or sloppy science.
 
In some quarters I still see the original Cornell/Nature Conservancy pronouncement of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers in the Big Woods characterized as a "hoax" or "fraud." It is clearly a MIS-characterization (for what, at worst, was weak science), but again, once on the Web it will carry well into the future, to many future newbie students… IF, the IBWO is never confirmed.
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-- Higgs Appears, Bevier Disappears --

(The elusive Higgs Bird, from Chester Reed 

via Wikimedia Commons)

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Happy Holiday! to my US readers… and Happy Higgs Day! to my European readers (and science buffs EVERYwhere!)… now that 'The God Particle' is being confirmed, perhaps the Lord God Bird will follow… ;-)

anyway, just one actual IBWO note of curiosity today:

I recently clicked to Louis Bevier's honed (skeptical) site on the Ivory-bill debate, only to find it gone:

http://web.mac.com/lrbevier/ivorybilled/Overview.html

Having not visited for several months, not sure when it went down, but apparently Apple dropped that particular domain from use at some point. So I surmise that either…

1) Louis, purposely or accidentally, let the site disappear, since he has the hard data and may feel the debate is long-settled, so no need to continue the Website... (or he may be re-working the material to re-post the site).

2) or, if by chance he is planning to publish further, extended material on the matter (in an academic journal), he may have felt no need to keep the Website up-and-running with a more formal publication in the offing.

3) or, he may simply be tired of being associated with the entire IBWO topic at all and moved on.

There are other possible explanations as well I s'pose, so if anyone knows more, or if his site can be found at some new URL, please let us know.
You can, by the way, still find most of the text portions of Bevier's old site via the Internet's Wayback Machine here:

http://tinyurl.com/6omqdkf
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