ivory-billed woodpecker further evidence

The next forum for presentation of evidence on the IBWO will be at the meeting of the American Ornithologists’ Union in late August in Santa Barbara. Presenting papers at conferences of this type are a typical way for researchers to present their work prior to publication in a peer-reviewed journal.

On 24 August, four papers are scheduled:

• Recent acoustic search for the IBWO — R. A. Charif, et al. [Russ is a research biologist in the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Bioacoustics Research Program]
• IBWO survey methods — R. W. Rohrbaugh, et al. [Ron is or was director of natural resources and visitor services at Cornell]
• IBWO evidence — K. Rosenberg, et al. [Ken is director of conservation science at Cornell]
• Refuge management and IBWOs — R. J. Cooper [professor of forestry, University of Georgia]

These talks should go into more depth, and help answer some questions about methods and additional evidence. One thing I know is that there were some 14,000 hours of audio recordings made in the Arkansas swamps, and Cornell is STILL not quite done analyzing all of it. However, as of last week, there were about 80 different recordings of the double-knocks thought to be distinctive of IBWOs, including some 100 km away from the area of the sightings, indicating more than one bird in Arkansas. There are also recordings of “kent” calls, with identical sonograms to those recorded in the 1930s.

On 25 August, John Fitzpatrick, lead author of the Science paper and director of Cornell, will give an evening talk entitled, “Rediscovery of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker and its conservation implications.” And by the way, Rick Prum is also on the docket to give an unrelated paper, and Jerry Jackson will be chairing another paper session. It should be an interesting conference!

I think many of the criticisms of the Science paper are healthy and well founded. I have said that I believe the weight of the evidence as a whole supports the identification of IBWO, but I have seen things that are not easily available to the general public. I think the Cornell team was under tremendous pressure to pull together what evidence it had, publish it, and make an announcement before the whole business was made public by leaks, which were, by mid-April, springing forth. So the weaknesses in the paper come from both the evidence being less-than-optimal, and the paper perhaps being rushed.

A Sunday New York Times article about the Ivory-billed Woodpecker flap reports that birders David Allen Sibley, Pete Dunne, and Kenn Kaufman all feel that the Science paper published by the Cornell team offered insufficient proof that the Arkansas sightings were indeed IBWOs. These men are celebrities in the birding world, and their opinions carry some weight. On Birdchat, the big birders listserv, Laura Erickson stated it well:

The debate seems to be descending into a scorched-earth battle, from which there will be no winners and the biggest loser will be conservation of the southeastern bottomland forest and the species that depend on it. And when the documented sight records of seven independent observers have no “scientific” weight, what with the magic of Photoshop and digital video manipulations, are we headed back to the days when the only acceptable “scientific” sightings were from the barrel of a shotgun?

I have not interjected much of my own opinion into my posts on this topic; my interest is mainly in the process of science, the often contentious interface between birding and ornithology, and offering what I hope is some clarification and analysis.

Here I will say that when the announcement of the IBWO rediscovery was made, I admit that the whole thing felt very “managed” to me, with a bit too much fanfare and self-congratulatory back-patting and not enough science for my taste. But, given the situation, how else could they have reacted and presented the information? Nearly six years ago, even before the failed Zeiss search, someone very close to me was part of a small team, including David Luneau, who searched the Pearl River in Louisiana for IBWO for a week. Each night I was updated, and each night we debated the question, “What happens if you DO find it?” Later, I tossed this around with another good friend, who was part of the Zeiss team.

There seemed to be no ideal answers, no perfect way to proceed from the first sighting considered really solid, no way to keep everything truly confidential until unequivocal evidence was obtained, no way to avoid a clash of professional and personal interests, no ideal presentation that would sway all skeptics and not ruffle at least some feathers. Now of course, we are all now dissecting the decisions made by the Cornell team. I, for one, think they probably did the best they could have under the circumstances, and with the habitat acquisition and protection accomplished a feat I would not have thought possible.

I am a natural skeptic and also admit to being overly critical, but I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m not going to second-guess this one. In my own little world of academia as well as in the birding community, I can sometimes feel like I’m tiptoeing through a minefield. I’m glad I wasn’t one of the people who had to figure out how to best proceed with the IBWO. I’m ready to give this one a rest for awhile.