Ivory Billed Woodpecker!!

Cafe Society
#1

Cornell announced today that they have conclusive proof that the Ivory Billed Wookpecker still lives!

Lord. I can hardly comprehend this. A species back from extinction. I still have tears in my eyes.

I know other species have been rediscovered. Other species discovered. But the Ivory Billed Woodpecker. This is special. This is amazing.

I am not a birder, not a biologist. Haven’t been to a Sierra Club meeting in 10 years. But in a world where every day it seems there is another symbol of degradation and destruction of our world, something great happens.

I didn’t know where to post this-I wanted it in headlines in every thread. But hopefully, this is a good place for really great news.

#2

Tonight’s CBS Evening News had a feature on this. They showed some not-very-detailed footage shot in an Arkansas swamp. An older film (from the 1940s) showed this magnificent bird in more detail. What a beauty!

#3

awesome!!

A nice, in-depth link: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/story.jsp?story=634044

#4

'e wasn’t dead. ‘e was just restin’.

#5

There is a thread on this subject going in MPSIMS:

There are some interesting views there about habitat destruction and how it affects threatened species.

The article on the woodpecker that is going to be published in Science can be found here: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/rapidpdf/1114103v1.pdf
It is worth looking at to see the methods used to identify the bird.

And a link to the actual video:

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol0/issue2005/images/data/1114103/DC1/1114103S1.mov

#6

just go to the Cornell.edu main page. They have pretty much everything published about this so far-after all they are the people that ran the research program.

Glow!

#7

'e was pining for the fjords.

#8

Not having missed the ivory billed woodpecker when it was gone, or even knowing it was gone, I’m . . . underwhelmed.

#9

Pffft. I’m not. This is huge, amazing, wonderful news, Walloon’s apparent ignorance about the issue aside.

#10

Be honest. Did any of you non-birders even know the ivory billed woodpecker was missing? OK. You were just as “ignorant” too.

#11

I’m on the meh side. It’s a bird. We thought it was dead turns out it’s alive, why would we get worked up.

According to wikipedia 99.9% of ever species that has ever lived has gone extinct. There is not enough time in a lifetime to mourn over all the dead critters.

#12

HAve you found the ivory billed woodpecker?
I didn’t know he was missing.

#13

Yes! Woodpecker is back on the menu! Mmmmm-mmmm!

#14

Hoping they find they have at least 1 matched set. :slight_smile:

#15

I’m a non-birder, and I knew. Your ignorance is your own. Don’t project it.

#16

I’m a non-birder.

I didn’t know he was missing.

I still thought it was pretty cool. I liked seeing the ornithologists excitement over it.

#17

Next thing you know, they’ll find a Passenger Pigeon!

#18

I may have been one of the “ignorant”, but good news is good news, and rare, unusual good news is even better, and it seems easier to be happy about rare, unusual good news than to hold it to an unreasonable standard of how overwhelmingly mind-blowing the news is before you choose to be happy about it. YMMV.

Hooray for the Woodpecker! :slight_smile:

#19

Wether or not you knew about it, you have to admit that a species being found for the first time in 60 years is at the very least, kinda sorta hearwarming. Not to mention the bird is, at least in the pictures (the video is too blurry) an impressive critter.

#20

Well, i was among the ignorant. But my ignorance was not wilfull, and now it has been corrected. And i think this is very cool.

Now, if we can just find a Thylacine i’ll really be happy.