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"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool."
-- Richard Feynman
[There's
ongoing discussion for readers to follow, in the comments to the prior post (which I'm trying
to stay out of!), but I will here further explain my own speculations a bit...]
Whenever I've asked participants in
Cornell's Big Woods search whether they thought the search was adequate
or suffered major problems, I've received a similar answer: the effort
had issues/flaws, but nothing that any large, similar project wouldn't
experience. Generally, most felt the search was
good enough that
IF the birds were there they would've been found and documented -- of
course Cornell didn't survey the entire Big Woods area, but did cover
what they felt were the most promising areas. (It's even slimly possible
that, as Cornell always acknowledged, the one IBWO initially reported,
was the very
last of its kind and deceased by the time the major search was underway.)
Similarly,
Auburn's organized Choctawhatchee search began with high confidence and
ended unsuccessfully, despite a lengthy, systematic effort. David
Kulivan's rather astounding 1999 claim for the Pearl (La.) was followed
(after some delay) with an extensive search of those woods, unable to
verify his claim. And I've lost count of how many missives I've received
over the years from people telling me, 'Ohhh, that woodpecker, I know
where they are; I'll get the proof, it'll be easy; those other bumpkins
just don't know where to look.' And of course none of these folks EVER get
back to me. None, NONE, NONE,
NONE, ZIPPPPPO....
So I well
understand why almost every individual I knew growing up who seriously
believed there was a chance of IBWO survival no longer thinks so. The
exasperation is palpable. We don't need reams of evidence for this bird,
or pages of info, or 100s of hints or claims or recordings, nor DNA
evidence, nor even a nice video... we just need ONE clear, indisputable
photo in 70+ years to get this story out of the starting gate, and
nobody can do it... even in a day of excellent, lightweight, prolific,
easy-to-operate, point-and-shoot cameras, not a single individual has
been able to pull it off, even... one... friggin'... time. Probably
no other woodland bird in the history of the planet (certainly not of
this size, loudness, distinctiveness) has EVER proven this elusive to so
many searchers. There has to be an explanation for such an outcome.
For
decades I presumed the difficulty of proof was a reflection of the
bird's scarcity and remote habitat. But following the Kulivan, Big
Woods, and Choctaw searches (in combination with all the smaller
searches over time) I find that, while not impossible, increasingly
implausible -- it requires a remarkably fine balancing act for there to be
enough Ivory-bills
continuously reproducing successfully over 7 decades, yet so few as to
be
undetectable or little encountered. The bird gets seen, but then rarely
re-seen; it is heard, but then rarely found; its sign is observed, but
it doesn't return to it; it is spotted by a single individual, but
virtually never by a group, nor remote camera -- this species either does NOT exist in the
places we are looking for it, or, if present, it is essentially
invisible to human eyes... and of course it can't be literally invisible
-- my speculation (prior post) is merely a means to explain such
"invisibility."
Either the photos taken by Fielding Lewis in the
early 70's, with a Brownie camera no less, within yards of an
Ivory-bill, (and in the presence of dogs no less), are absolute frauds
(stuffed specimen), or remaining Ivory-bills have markedly changed
their behavior since then. My outside-the-box view is simply that few of
the habits, behaviors, requirements recorded for prior IBWOs (which are
based on an exceedingly small sample anyway) can be assumed to hold
true today for any birds remaining. Loud, mobile Ivory-bills, scaling
downed dead trees are a creature of the past, replaced by relatively
quiet, reclusive, canopy-dwelling denizens (so I'm hypothesizing, until
someone can persuade me of a better alternative). (It all reminds me a tad of
white-tailed deer evolving nocturnal habits as a sheer survival
mechanism... and yet, when a herd is hunted repeatedly at night, they
will switch back to daytime activity; animals continuously adapt for survival.)
Millions of dollars spent, 1000s of man-hours expended,
yet we seem no closer to finding Ivory-bills today than we were 10 years
ago. The failure is STUNNING! One goal I expected that even a failed
Cornell effort would accomplish was to delimit the search for IBWOs to
perhaps no more than 3 states and a few locales. Instead, we remain
stuck with at least 7 states (perhaps more) and dozens of tracts that
might be home to the species... little has been ruled in or out, and paltry little established with certainty after all this time and
money.
Having said this, I STILL believe IBWOs ARE out there (and
likely in multiple states) -- but the near inexplicable situation we
have cries out for an explanation (other than as skeptics wish to
explain it). My own belief (in persistence) rests almost entirely on the tiny trickle of
good sightings of this almost unmistakable bird that have transpired
over the years; beyond that I see no strong evidence for the species
(though there are intriguing bits in association with some of those
sightings). Many disagree, and regard the sightings themselves as very
weak evidence (if the IBWO is ever confirmed, a serious, clarifying discussion of
the crucial nature of sightings and field-identification ought occur)
-- for now, my engagement with this topic is so deep it's difficult, any
longer, to even judge my own objectivity on those few pieces of
evidence I'm relying on. We need always keep Feynman's admonition fresh in mind, for we most risk being fooled... by ourselves.
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