Science, the Ivory-bill, and the vortex of extinction

As I’m sure you know by now, today’s issue of the journal Science contains a four-and-a-half-page staff-written story on the Ivory-billed Woodpecker (“Gambling on a Ghost Bird” by Erik Stokstad, Science, Vol.317, No.5840, 17 August 2007, p.888. The article is available online for free to AAAS members only.)

The article was the subject of much conversation in between sessions at the just-concluded AOU meeting in Laramie, where the word in the hallways was that it might appear on Friday, the day before Geoff Hill and Brian Rolek's presentations. And I wish that it had, since then it would have taken its proper place in the Ivory-bill chronology. But the interviews were completed, the writing was done, and the story was in the can before the meeting started. The data Hill presented in Laramie were not addressed. Instead, Stokstad summarizes the Florida search in a single sentence:

“Hill is convinced that he and his team saw ivorybills in 2005 and 2006 along the Choctawhatchee River in Florida, but he admits he can’t deliver enough evidence yet.”

No one in Laramie knew, of course, what shape the finished Science piece would take -- how long it would be, how faithfully it would recount conversations, how frankly, or even if, the journal would address the rushed review process that preceded its June 2005 announcement of the woodpecker’s apparent rediscovery -- so there was a clear sense of anticipation.

Does the article deliver?

It reveals that members of the Cornell team worked mighty hard behind the scenes to silence skeptics Jerry Jackson, Mark Robbins, and Rick Prum. (You can read about Jackson's highly critical "Perspectives in Ornithology" article here.)
-- Jim Tate, then the science advisor to the very science-minded Bush Administration, called Jackson in July 2005 and told him to “back off.” (Tate, Stokstad writes, denies this.)
-- Cornell Lab director John Fitzpatrick went a step further confronting Jackson in August 2006 and going so far as to offer him "co-authorship on a future paper” if he would withdraw a letter to The Auk. Jackson’s reply: “That’s not how I operate.”

It suggests that the Cornell search won’t, can’t, go on indefinitely. Stokstad writes: “Fitzpatrick anticipates another year or two of searching at most. ‘It’s just too expensive,’ he says, noting that it’s become harder to raise money.”

It puts into words, depressingly, just how deep people have dug in their heels. The one side wants proof that the bird in the Luneau video is not an Ivory-bill, the other demands proof that it is: “Fitzpatrick and Lammertink,” writes Stokstad, “say they will remain convinced that the Luneau video shows an ivory-billed woodpecker until they see evidence that a pileated could look and fly like that.... Skeptics, on the other hand, won’t believe in ivory-billed woodpeckers until they see clear proof.”

But perhaps the article’s most important contribution is its somber appraisal of the woodpecker’s chances: “After more than 2 years of herculean efforts and sometimes vituperative debate, indisputable evidence of the bird’s existence has not emerged,” Stokstad writes.

He goes on: “Most birders and ornithologists seem resigned that even if an ivorybill was in Arkansas in 2004, the chance to save the species is past. ‘I want to hope against all odds,’ says James Bednarz of Arkansas State University in Jonesboro. ‘But my scientific logic says it’s deep in the vortex of extinction.’” -- C.H.

Comments

[Darrell C.]

As A Concerned Scientist pointed out, if we stake out monies and attention to save the presumably extinct Ivory-billed, we may neglect the other species that could be saved. In my backyard in Raleigh, NC we had Red Headed, Hairy, Downy, and Red Bellied all feeding on my suet feeder daily. In the past three weeks they knocked down all but a row of trees to start construction of a new Elementary. Now the only one left is the downy. It was amazing when two species were be on the feeder on different sides. Hopefully destroying their homes and their food source wasn't too much for them.

[A Concerned Scientist]

Cotinis pretty much hit the nail on the head. This is typical of the arrogance and lack of ethics seen in academia today. (Guess what kids, it's not just Big Oil and Big Pharma that misrepresent scientific data!) Massive ego, a lack of oversight/accountability, and a dwindling pool of Federal funds are a recipe for disaster.

Fitzpatrick's "evidence" for the Ivory-bill is so laughably weak that it's sad. Take his name off of the manuscript and I guarantee that reviewers for even the lowest-impact journal would reject it in a New York second. This is yet another example of the "good old boy" reviewer system looking out for one of their own.

And if Fitzpatrick's claims weren't bad enough, his (alleged) use of threats and bribery to silence his critics is deplorable. I'd say that Cornell's Lab needs to look for a new director.

[Nathan]

Cyberthursh said---
"documenting even just 2 birds remaining would demonstrate that it actually survived the habitat destruction of the 18 and 1900's, and possibly could've been saved but for the benign neglect of the last 60 years."

Yeah of course it would, especially if they had documented even just 2 birds, which they didn't. So it couldn't have been saved in the last 60 years because it has been extinct all that time. The vortex is long since gone down the drain on this one. Time to try to save some birds that have a chance.

[Cotinis]

All of this sounds like typical scientific/institutional politics, with lab chiefs defending their data, no matter how dubious, like medieval lords defending their fiefdoms. Their weaponry includes peer review, threats, and bribes instead of maces and swords, but the behavior is the same. And truth, of course, is the first casualty of such a war.

As far as the "vortex of extinction", I agree with my friend Cyberthrush, but I feel the vortex of extinction was swirling starting in the 1880's, with the door finally closed in the 1940's. I've been tantalized by the sketchy reports of IBWO since the 1960's, but no confirmation has ever been forthcoming. My hopes have been tickled, then dashed, over and over for forty-five years. All the zeros from the latest round of searching, with its huge manpower and high-tech tools, has convinced me that the bird really was gone in 1944. I had never thought this true until recently.

[cyberthrush]

I agree that the Ivory-bill is probably in the "vortex of extinction," but documenting even just 2 birds remaining would demonstrate that it actually survived the habitat destruction of the 18 and 1900's, and possibly could've been saved but for the benign neglect of the last 60 years... and that would be an important thing to know, and a lesson learned.