Ivory-bill woodpecker researchers at Cornell seem to have placed a lot of faith in technology to locate the species through sound recordings, among other methods. I think that Dr. Jerry Jackson referred to this approach as "faith based ornithology". In Biblical terms, faith may be described as belief in things unseen (or not photographed with acceptable quality) yet hoped for.... But it appears that faith has its weaknesses in the scientific sense, as demonstrated by a recent paper in The Wilson Bulletin as described below from the BirdWatch website in the blogosphere:
Clark Jones and colleagues ..., writing in The Wilson Journal of Ornithology (119(2): 259-262), say that the confusion with woodpecker raps may arise because of “close similarities in amplitude ratios, peak-to-peak times between raps, and auditory quality between ARU recordings and wing collisions from a Gadwall”. In other words, the technology is not as reliable as some had hoped, and thus neither is some of the evidence for the continued existence of this species. Of course, the (scientific) jury is still out, the hope prevails that the existence of ivory-bills can and will be adequately verified and documented. Yet one has to wonder, with all the alleged sightings in Florida and yet no documentation of a nest or nests, where do the researchers think these birds are going from and to? Is there a non-breeding population and not a breeding one? Stan Moore San Geronimo, CA [EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________________________________________________ Get a preview of Live Earth, the hottest event this summer - only on MSN http://liveearth.msn.com?source=msntaglineliveearthhm
