-- Florida Ivorybill Distribution --

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"Dacol" over at IBWO Researchers Forum recently posted this map from Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission which shows the historical distribution, by county, that Ivorybill specimens in museums came from:

http://www.ibwo.net/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=976&d=1192809820

Two things of note: few panhandle counties (where the greatest interest has been the last 1-2 years) are included in this distribution, and the four counties with the highest numbers of specimens, rather than being clumped together (as one might expect), are actually spread widely apart in the north, central, and southern areas of the Sunshine State.
(Doesn't necessarily mean anything at all, given the small numbers involved, but interesting.)
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-- More Old Ground --

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Covering some old ground once again....

The lack of confirmation for various Ivory-billed Woodpecker claims over the decades, lack of a definitive photograph in 60 years, and failure to find an active nesthole, are all excellent reasons for postulating that Ivorybills are very rare creatures indeed, but insufficient for proposing extinction of the species, without a more thorough and systematic search of habitat, as now underway. The potential sheer rarity of the species can adequately explain all these (lack of) findings.

The strongest argument skeptics can muster for extinction is probably what I'll term the 'bottleneck' argument --- i.e., that one can't both assume the species is so rare that it exists only in small isolated, disparate populations, and yet simultaneously believe it has managed to persist for 60 years, through the breeding or genetic 'bottlenecks' that would result --- Either the population must be (or have been) much larger to still be around today (in which case good, confirmed sightings and/or photos would be available by now), or, if so rare for decades that it couldn't be documented, than individuals simply couldn't persist to today --- you can't have it both ways... To which I simply reply, "schnickerdooooodles!!"

The reproductive drive of animals is incredibly powerful (and mysterious). Moths of course employ pheromones to traverse amazing distances in locating mates, and larger creatures as well, routinely defy odds to link up with their own kind. Tanner presumed at the time of his study that there were small populations of IBWO in Louisiana, Florida, and S. Carolina. He may have underestimated the numbers and locales, but even if he was correct that presents both potential Atlantic Coast and Gulf Coast corridors for Ivorybills to move along in pursuit of mates and territory --- corridors, that since the 50's have gotten slowly but steadily richer in (second-growth) habitat. Ivorybills were known as strong fliers that could easily cover wide distances, even if not migratory by nature. And with hunting pressure off them, odds for survival could further increase.

Moreover (as I've said previously), under some circumstances, animal populations can actually drop much faster from say 1000 individuals to 500, or 500 to 200, than from 50 to 0, because at the lower numbers, 'sustainability' sets in; i.e., the number of individuals being produced over a given time period offsets the number being lost, once territory, food, and other needs can now be met easily at the lower densities involved. (Whooping Cranes were down to around 14 individuals before humans stepped in to turn their situation around --- I don't know if there are any records indicating just how long they hung on at the under-40 level before that human intervention took place? --- cranes of course are very different from woodpeckers, but if they could sustain a viable population for decades, while only raising one chick per year in the wild, before Man stepped in, than the IBWO would seem to have the same opportunity.)

So, could the Ivorybill sustain itself at such small numbers over a lengthy period as to elude being definitively documented? Obviously, my answer is yes. How probable is it? --- I don't know (...maybe just as probable as every last report of the species over 5 decades being in error?).... and afterall really, in the grander scheme of things, how probable is a giraffe or a duck-billed platypus??? Or, as Annie Dillard reminds us, "improbabilities" are the "stock and trade" of nature....
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-- Steinberg Speaking --

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If you're in/near Tuscaloosa, Dr. Michael Steinberg, author of the forthcoming (next year) book "Stalking the Ghost Bird: The Elusive Ivory-Billed Woodpecker in Louisiana" is giving a talk to the West Alabama Sierra Club Thur. night (Oct. 18) at Univ. of Alabama's Museum of Natural History, 7 pm.:

http://uanews.ua.edu/anews2007/oct07/ghostbird101607.htm
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-- Extinction --

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I get emails....

...repeatedly, asking when, if ever, I'd consider the Ivory-bill extinct, so we'll cover this again:

First, it must be said that contrary to what sometimes is stated on the Web, Ivory-billed Woodpeckers were never and have never been declared extinct by any official Governmental agency. Only individuals and a few impatient non-governmental groups over the years took the liberty of labeling the species "extinct."

Now, the Moa and Dodo, yeah probably extinct --- I'd certainly be hugely surprised if any evidence to the contrary arose. On-the-other-hand, Passenger Pigeon and Carolina Parakeet, while certainly most likely also extinct, I would not be completely surprised if evidence to the contrary arose in either case, even if unexpected.

Declaring a species extinct is a serious matter, never to be done lightly, and can logically be based only on one of two things:

1. A truly lengthy lapse of time with no credible sightings for the species. And for a species with an extensive prior range like the Ivory-bill's, 60 years is not a long enough time even with no sightings, and certainly not enough time when a continuous string of reports is involved (as further borne out by the number of species re-discovered after a 50-60 year absence, or even after 100 years).

or,

2. A thorough, systematic search of the remaining habitat that might harbor a species reveals no indication for its presence --- this can sometimes be accomplished for species with very small ranges (such as a single island), but again, in the case of the Ivory-bill it hasn't, and realistically can't, be accomplished.

What is necessary then in the case of the Ivory-bill is as thorough a search as practical of remaining habitat (which is finally underway) combined with a lengthy passage of time with no credible sightings. This may eventually come to pass, but it hasn't been achieved in the previous 60 years. Those who think it has, vastly overrate the precision of human foot-searches.

Instead, skeptics repeatedly equate a 'failure to confirm' a claim, to evidence that the claim is false, when it is nothing of the sort. Indeed, a lot of good science would be tossed aside if failures to confirm were all it took to falsify.
Moreover, skeptics assume that if 90% of IBWO claims are quickly demonstrated as mis-IDs, wishful thinking, illusions, mutated Pileateds, and the like, than ALL such claims must be assumed as such. But one cannot simply dismiss a sighting as 'mistaken' without specifying inaccuracies or falsehoods in the claim; nor does the invention of alternative explanations allow for the automatic dismissal of a stated claim. Generalizing from a set of specific cases (mistaken IDs) to ALL cases, instead of evaluating each one independently, is simply sloppy science, especially when involving different people in different places at different times. The fallacy of over-generalization is risky in all of science, but especially so here, where confirmation of but a single recent Ivory-bill report validates the species' existence for the entire 60 years prior, regardless of how many other claims prove false.

Over the last 40 years, and well before any news from the Big Woods and Choctawhatchee, my personal confidence in Ivory-bill existence ranged anywhere from about 85% to 98% probability --- and nothing that has happened in the last 3 years much changes that overall range for me.
But yes, if time passes with increased and wider searches, and still no photo, and fewer and fewer credible reports arising, then that percentage might easily fall well below the critical 50%. But, it isn't likely to reach the certainty level that so many skeptics already preach.

Certainty in life is rare and boring. Probabilities are the very stuff of life --- what make it interesting and worthwhile. And in the realm of the Ivory-bill, we can disagree over what those probabilities are, but in the end, probabilities and not certainty, are what we have to work with. For now, I continue to put my trust in the actual on-site reports of certain individuals who's knowledge and experience is such that they ought to know what they witnessed with their own eyes, and not in the conjectures, speculation, and denigrations cast out by others, often from afar.

....in the meantime, on the off-chance you think you spot a Dodo crossing your backyard... well, DON'T notify me.
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-- Still... No... Evidence --

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Stiiiiill.... no solid evidence to support the notion that the Ivory-billed Woodpecker is extinct:

1. No thorough, coordinated searches of Southeast habitat for presence of the bird yet completed (just recently gotten underway). Those few areas lately focussed on resulting, almost invariably, in at least some sightings claims and/or evidence for possible presence.

2. No proof or even strong evidence that the 100's of claims over decades, are, in every single instance, examples of lying or mis-identification, often from individuals who's birding reports otherwise have been routinely accepted.

3. Not a single photograph of a leucistic Pileated Woodpecker with copycat markings of an Ivory-bill to account for all those IBWO claims over the years.

4. Never a single replication, authentication, validation, or even peer-reviewed critique (as customary in science) of the only solid study done on Ivorybills by Tanner. Whether Tanner did what he claimed he did, or accurately recorded his data, or drew valid conclusions, can in many instances never be known, anymore than the claims of more recent Ivory-bill sighters can ever be known with certainty; and even if Tanner's Singer Tract data/observations were 100% accurate, there remains no way of knowing what such a small sample even tells us about other Ivory-bills in other locales outside the Singer Tract...

In short, while there is plenty of evidence for the rarity of this species, there is little evidence for the absolutist stance of 'extinction,' just ongoing loads of conjecture, speculation, over-generalization, and circular talk.

Ultimately we are left with essentially two probabilities:

a. that all the claims/sightings, by different individuals in different places at different times under different circumstances and from different angles, are in every instance, errors, or

b. that an already-scarce bird living out its life in the upper canopies and cavities of deep forest has eluded definitive photography for a 60+ year period (over which time most people didn't even routinely carry cameras into the woods).

And each person must decide for themselves which probability they find greater, unless-or-until ongoing science answers the question for us...
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-- 10-12-07 --

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CONGRATULATIONS! to Al Gore

While Cheney and Bush fiddle on....
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-- Swamp Watching --

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David Luneau has a possible request that will likely interest some here (seeking volunteers to help review swamp videos remotely this coming season):

http://www.ibwo.org/

(check his first entry, "Upcoming search season.")
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