I’m reposting an entry from February 2015 with some new commentary as prologue. I recently received a Google alert about a new paper on statistical approaches to extinction relying on sight records. According to the paper, which has not yet been peer reviewed: We have shown that the rate of sightings is the strongest indicator […]
1967 slides taken by Neal Wright of a putative Ivory-billed Woodpecker in Texas are viewable on Vireo (search Ivory-billed Woodpecker), but high resolution scans have not been widely circulated as far as I know. These images were not made public until after the the Arkansas “rediscovery”, more than three decades after they were obtained. Wright’s story […]
I thought I’d address a couple of comments from ibwo.net written in response to the recent post on sightings and evidence from 1944-2003. Duck Stamp reminded me that Lewis’s story and identity were revealed in Tim Gallagher’s The Grail Bird, and Houston pointed out John Fitzpatrick’s discussion of the images in a presentation on the rediscovery. As far […]
This post is inspired in large part by an exchange of emails with Chris Sharpe, an ornithologist who is working on an IBWO literature review. Our correspondence revolved around the IUCN’s species account, which describes the ivorybill as “possibly extinct” and cites recent statistical analyses that suggest extinction is likely, as well as one that […]
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