The ivory-billed woodpecker – an American icon among birds (Image: John A Ruthven)
Posted on 03/13/2006 11:13:06 AM PST by S0122017
Doubts cast on superstar woodpecker's return 12:36 13 March 2006 NewScientist.com news service Bob Holmes
The apparent rediscovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker in 2005 – hailed as one of the great conservation triumphs of recent times – may be merely a case of mistaken identity, according to a new study.
In April 2005, researchers led by John Fitzpatrick at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York, announced in the journal Science that the woodpecker, believed extinct for 60 years, had been seen alive in the swamps of eastern Arkansas, US. And they had a video of the bird to back their story.
The bird's seemingly miraculous survival for many decades caused a stir among conservationists worldwide, and the US government moved quickly to appoint a recovery team and commit more than $10 million to try to rescue the species.
But as the first frenzy of excitement subsides, many ornithologists are now coming forward to say they are not convinced by the evidence behind the supposed rediscovery.
"When I first heard the news, I was really excited," says Michael Patten, director of research at the University of Oklahoma's Sutton Avian Research Center in Bartlesville, US. "I went right to Science's website, and I was crestfallen. I was like, ‘Oh, my God. This is all they have’. I wanted them to be right, but it was pretty apparent right away that they sure don't have much here."
Frame by frame The problem is that the video – still the best evidence of the woodpecker's existence – contains no more than a blurry, four-and-a-half-second glimpse of a distant bird as it takes off from a tree and flies away into the forest. See the video here (.mov format).
Fitzpatrick's team has painstakingly examined the footage frame by frame, and they remain convinced it shows enough detail to prove that the bird is an ivory-billed woodpecker and not a pileated woodpecker, the only other woodpecker of similar size and appearance.
In particular, the researchers point to the pattern of white markings on the wings and body, the size of the bird and shape of its wings, and its rapid wingbeats. (See the detailed analysis.)
Flashes of white But sceptics challenge the Cornell team's interpretations on each of these points. A pileated woodpecker – either a normal one or a rare piebald form with more white feathers showing – could have shown similar flashes of white in flight, says Jerome Jackson, an ornithologist at Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers, US, and one of the world's leading experts on the ivory-billed woodpecker.
And the ivory-billed woodpecker is only a few centimetres larger than the pileated one, he says. "That's about the difference between a yardstick and a metre stick," Jackson notes. "At 100 yards, could you tell the difference between a yardstick and a metre stick? It just doesn't make sense to say it was much larger than a pileated woodpecker." Jackson published his criticisms in January in the ornithological journal The Auk (vol 123, p 1).
But if there really are ivory-billed woodpeckers in the Arkansas woods, critics say, should searchers not have seen another by now? "They might not be visible on two or three trips or 50 hours of observation," says Jackson. "But now we're talking about thousands of hours by the Cornell people alone. In my opinion, we should have had something by now."
Journal reference: The Auk (vol 123, p 1)
PING
I have viewed the bird that they claim was mistaken for this one, and that video was not of that woodpecker. It had to be a Ivory. No other bird has that much white.
The only thing they have in common are size and shape.
I saw a pilliated woodpecker outside in my back yard.
damn thing was huge and looked like Woody Woodpecker.
Never mind.
That was so obviously the biggest pile of BS outside of a feedlot that has come down the pike in many many years. I seriously doubt it was a case of mistaken identity, they got what they wanted, lots of money.
As for a breeding population, if there was one bird it had to come from parents, and none have been seen in far too many eyars to legitimize this. It was a grab for money and power. I don't know if they finally prevented the dam they were trying to eliminate to cut out the farmers.
So you're theory is that they spraypainted a woodpecker
just to get the funds and then couldn't make any better recordings then one short fragment? Most things biologists do is NOT for money..if we wanted that we would have become laywers.
The video is really not good evidence. Clearly the bird is very large and may be a woodpecker, but it's just too blurry to really tell.
I prefer the early, borderline psychotic woodpecker from the early forties to the subsequent kinder gentler varieties.
Read the article again, it is by scientists. There simply was not enough of a picture to tell anything.
Not all lawyers are rich.
It can't be certain, but to claim it must be about money goes to far. Ít is not right to presume that everyone is out to get money and is willing to fake stuff for it whole day long.
But, with the woodpecker, that's really what people said. A few seconds of blurry video and we have a proven scientific fact. Sheesh!
The woodpecker was alive just a sort while ago, that makes it more convincing. Plesiosaurs are a bit longer gone..
also, plesiosaurs are really difficult to hide.
A few woodpeckers can hide, i mean they're birds in a very large forest.
Elvis was alive more recently than the woodpecker. But if I saw a few seconds of video featuring The King next to Brad Pitt, I would not be convinced that he was in the building.
FReepmail me to be added or removed to the ECO-PING list!
It's all a fraud.... :)
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