Was The IBWO Better Off As A Ghost?
(Note: IBWO=Ivory-billed Woodpecker)
Scott Weidensaul doesn't think so. But as he says, we should give everyone a chance to show their true colors with regards to this magnificent bird.
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Having had a chance [to] accompany the research crew from the Nature Conservancy and Cornell in the field this winter, I cannot imagine anything less likely than them wantonly disturbing this bird -- after 14 months of incredible effort, they were barely able to find it. Birders who think this is going to be an easy tick on their lifelists are in for a rude awakening when they discover how big and challenging the Big Woods of Arkansas are to simply get around.
And as for agencies making "only token efforts to manage and protect them," shouldn't we give them more than a week to prove themselves? One result of the past year's secrecy has been a great deal of thought and planning for how to best protect the bird while engaging local communities. What's more, the efforts of TNC [The Nature Conservancy], Ducks Unlimited, USFWS [US Fish and Wildlife Service], the state of Arkansas and other partners over the past 20 years, before anyone knew the ivorybill still existed, preserved an enormous chunk of this bottomland ecosystem (120,000 acres by TNC alone). In just the past year, they raised more than $10 million for land acquisition in the Big Woods.
I am convinced the ivorybill is better off now than when it was a ghost; it'll be interesting, for example, to see what effect this discovery has on the battle against channelization of the Cache and White rivers by the Army Corps of Engineers -- one agency whose commitment to the ivorybill I would question.
Scott Weidensaul
Schuylkill Haven, Pa.
© 2004, 2005, 2006 by GrrlScientist
posted by GrrlScientist at
11:35
3 Peer Reviews:
I hope Scott is right. It would be a shame to have found this magnificent bird alive, only to now hound out of existence.
Birders who think this is going to be an easy tick on their lifelists are in for a rude awakening when they discover how big and challenging the Big Woods of Arkansas are to simply get around.
Is this going to be a situation where incautious, overeager folks get themselves lost, so that search and rescue teams are being dispatched to save themselves from their own carelessness?
Many, many years ago, I was at a conference put on by Tufts Vet School's Center for Animals and Society (or some such name). A man from Mass Fish and Wildlife who worked with endangered species remarked in his talk that if our great obligation to domestic animals is to take good care of them, then our great obligation to wild animals is to leave them alone.
This is worth repeating .. if our great obligation to domestic animals is to take good care of them, then our great obligation to wild animals is to leave them alone.
Although this is becoming increasingly difficult in this overcrowded, selfish and resource-hungry world.
GrrlScientist
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