Category: conservation

Readers’ wildlife photos

January 28, 2025 • 8:15 am

Athayde Tonhasca Júnior contributes another text-and-photo essay to the site, this time showing how a thorough knowledge of ecology is required to save a declining species. His ID’s and captions are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

The butterfly, the plant, and the ant

All news is bad news, it seems, especially about the environment. Melting glaciers, oceans choked with plastic, relentless deforestation, extinctions. In the face of such a depressing deluge, we could do with a feel-good tale. And as inspiring tales go, it’s hard to beat the Large Blue Story.

The large blue butterfly (Phengaris arion) has always been rare in Britain, but its numbers were found to be alarmingly low by 1972 and falling steadily thereafter. In 1979, it became extinct in the British Isles. At first, collectors were blamed for the large blue’s demise, which was a reasonable explanation considering the rarity and the appeal of such a beautiful butterfly. But soon attention was directed to another possibility: the depletion of wild thyme (Thymus praecox), the main food for the butterfly’s early larval instars (developmental stages). It turned out that food losses contributed to the large blue extinction, but the plot was considerably thicker.

The large blue butterfly, Phengaris arion. The species’ taxonomy is a matter of dispute, so it is also known as Maculinea arion © PJC&Co, Wikimedia Commons:

The large blue and about 75% of the 6,000 or so related species (family Lycaenidae) are myrmecophilous, that is, they are associated with ants. These butterfly-ant relationships vary in form and intensity, but in the case of the large blue, red ants (Myrmica spp.) mean food: without them, the butterfly cannot survive.

A female large blue lays her eggs on the flower buds of wild thyme – wild marjoram (Origanum vulgare) would do, but it usually flowers too late in the season for the butterfly. The emerging caterpillars eat the wild thyme flower heads and seeds for the first few weeks of their lives, like any ordinary butterfly. Siblings are also fair game: if two eggs hatch on the same flower, one baby caterpillar will eat the other. Then the surviving one goes full Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

The grown caterpillar drops to the ground and starts releasing substances that attract worker ants, including pheromones that mimic the aroma of red ant larvae. When an ant bumps into it, the caterpillar stretches and twists to assume the shape of an ant larva. So instead of attacking the juicy, soft and nutritious caterpillar, the chemically mesmerised ants take their ‘stray young’ back to their nest. There the caterpillar is cared for just like the ants’ own brood.

Once inside an ant nest, some lycaenid species adopt a cuckoo lifestyle; they induce the ants to nurse and feed them through regurgitation. Not the large blue (and some related species): they feed on ant larvae, all the while secreting sugary substances to keep the ant workers happy.

A greater large blue (P. arionides) caterpillar feeding on M. kotokui larvae © Ueda et al., 2016:

The caterpillar carries on eating ant grubs until it pupates the following spring. The emerging adult crawls to the surface and seeks refuge in the nearby vegetation, where it expands its wings and flies away in search of a mate.

A gravid female butterfly (1) is attracted to wild marjoram (2) and lays her eggs on suitable flower buds (3). A fourth-instar caterpillar drops to the ground and is ‘adopted’ by ants (4). The caterpillar spends 11 months inside the ants’ nest, feeding on their brood (5) © Casacci et al., 2019:

The above was a summary of the complex biology and ecology of the large blue: UK butterflies has the full story.

The large blue’s reliance on wild thyme and red ants has been known for a long time, but none of the conservation efforts prevented its extinction in 1979. Things started to change when a PhD student – today Professor Jeremy Thomas, OBE, made a crucial discovery. Not just any red ant would do for the large blue. It needs one specific species: M. sabuleti (M. scabrinodis is an alternative host, but butterfly survival is poor with this ant).

Myrmica sabuleti, the crucial host for the large blue © B. Schoenmakers, Wikimedia Commons.

Thomas’ findings opened a whole new perspective for large blue conservation. If M. sabuleti populations are not doing well, the butterfly cannot do well either, regardless of the quantity and condition of the host plant.

It turns out that the survival and abundance of this ant depend largely on one factor: sunshine, which warms their nests. If grasses that grow alongside wild thyme are too tall, the ant nests will become shaded, cold and wet: the colonies will fail or be too small to sustain large blue populations. One caterpillar may require 200 ant larvae to reach adulthood, and about 350 ant workers may be needed to rear a single caterpillar. The conclusion from these findings was that fencing, thought to help the butterfly by keeping thyme-munchers at bay, is actually bad for the ants.

Wild thyme in full sunshine maintains healthy M. sabuleti colonies © GT1976, Wikimedia Commons:

Armed with this information, Nature Conservancy (now Natural England) and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology launched a reintroduction programme, and its linchpin was the creation and management of adequate conditions for both the butterfly and the ant. Conservation organisations, land managers and volunteers set out to monitor large blue and M. sabuleti populations, manage grazing to keep the grass short, clear scrub and plant wild thyme. When a pilot site was considered in favourable condition in 1983, large blue specimens were brought in from Sweden. More releases followed at several suitable sites during subsequent years. Today, large blue colonies are more abundant and larger than they were in the 1950s.

The rescue of the large blue butterfly is a textbook case of species conservation, known and celebrated around the world. It inspires and shows us that science, hard work and goodwill go a long way to restore and protect our natural world.

Readers’ wildlife photos

February 20, 2024 • 8:15 am

Today we have photos from Rosemary Alles, a reader who runs an animal conservation organization in South Africa, and is also helping me organize my August trip to Kruger. She originally comes from Sri Lanka but now splits her time between South Africa and the U.S. But I’ll let her narrate herself (her text is indented), and you can enlarge her photos by clicking on them. Oh, and there’s a link should you wish to donate to the organization.

Sri-Lanka lies in the shadow of her giant neighbor India; a teardrop on the vast slate of the Indian Ocean. My family emigrated from our island nation many moons ago, leaving a jeweled landscape ravaged by corruption, ethnic violence, and terrorism.  My first home in the West was in Canada, and then, on the Big Island of Hawaii. These days, I travel between South Africa and Hawaii, centering my work on the protection of iconic megafauna, the Global March for Elephants and Rhinos (GMFER). These images were captured in Kruger National Park during a 3-day journey into Africa’s wild world. We work with wildlife rangers (the Black Mambas and Transfrontier Africa), their extended families, and their children to bring the wonders of South Africa’s wilderness to those who rarely—or never—experience it. Our work with the children in rural communities of Africa helps disrupt poaching and wildlife trafficking and heals the wounds inflicted by apartheid and history. Currently we are seeking donations to buy 4 large canvas tents to accommodate more children and young adults in our monthly programs designed to disrupt the distance between rural South Africans and their wild heritage; our target goal is 1500.00 USD. You can help us here.   [JAC:  dig down, please, readers. I don’t ask for anything for me, but these are other species of African mammals who are asking.]

African Bush Elephant (also called “Savannah Elephant,” Loxodonta africana) – male, aka, “Purple Haze”:

Saddle-billed Stork (Ephippiorhynchus senegalensis), female:

 

Grey Heron (Ardea cineria):

Young African Elephant bulls – jostling for dominance at water tank:

Woodland Kingfisher (Halcyon senegalensis):

African Giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis), searching the horizon:

Young African Bull Elephant  – drinking at water tank:

African Red-eyed Bulbul (Pycnonotus nigricans):

Elephant Dreams. Mature bull in thicket:

African buffalo (Syncerus caffer); “I’m going to make you an offer you can’t refuse”:

European Roller (Coracias garrulus, migratory):

The iconic Olifants River in Kruger:

Our children and young adults:

Our children and young adults at Koru camp:

Below: images of Nkateko Mzimba, a Black Mamba/Transfrontier Africa Anti-Poaching Ranger at CITES CoP19 (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora – CoP19). Our group -GMFER- sponsored her trip and  accompanied her to Panama City in Panama for CoP19; this so she could advocate on behalf of Africa’s iconic wildlife.  CITES determines, via representative nation votes, the quotas of wild, endangered species and/or their body parts each country can exploit and export; it also regulates—and not well—quotas of trophy hunts. CITES’ representative body in the United States is the USFWS and operates under the Department of the Interior. By and large, and much like many international agencies, CITES is largely ineffective and vaguely corrupt. Still, it is the “best thing” we have to monitor and regulate the trade of endangered species. While in Panama, we collaborated with local schools for a celebration of wildlife on the opening day of CITES’ CoP19. During CoP19, Nkateko’s powerful testimony against Trophy Hunting was delivered prior to a victorious vote on a temporary moratorium on the live capture and trade of wild African elephants.“After a long and complex debate, Africa’s elephants were finally given some respite when the Convention in International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) voted in favor of a temporary moratorium on further exports of live wild elephants at its Conference of the Parties in Panama.” – Born Free. 

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Nkateko describes how her life changed after she became a ranger – at CITES’ CoP19:

Nkateko testified on agenda Item: 66.4 at CITES’ CoP19 – moratorium on the live capture and trade of wild African elephants:

JAC: If only 300 readers donated $5 each, GMFER would reach its goal of providing shelter for local residents who are learning about wildlife in an effort to save them.  Think about making a small (or large) donation here. Money goes a long way in South Africa, so don’t feel shy about donating even $1 or just a couple of bucks. Thanks!

The first photos of Atelopus coynei tadpoles

August 3, 2023 • 9:20 am

As I’ve described before, I collected the first specimen of Atelopus coynei, a small tropical frog that now has its own Wikipedia page. I collected it in the late 1970s on a field trip to Ecuador with my grad-school bestie, the late Ken Miyata, a man who’s sorely missed (he died in a fishing accident in 1983). As I had loaned Ken $500 to help him pay for rent and food, he did me the honor of naming the frog after me.

As it was rare, and first found in coastal Ecuadorian wet forests, which have largely disappeared, I eventually assumed that my frog was extinct, a metaphor for my own life. But, mirabile dictu, it was rediscovered by the great naturalist and photographer Andreas Kay on February 7, 2012 at Chinambi, Carchi, Ecuador. This was far from the sea, in the rain forest of the Andes foothills near the Colombian border, and the frog was still listed as “critically endangered.”

Then, in 2017, I got an email from naturalist Lou Jost, who reads and contributes to this site, telling me that A. coynei had been found on land close to the EcoMinga Foundation’s Dracula Reserve (Lou co-directs the foundation).

. . . . in December 2017, Javier and our herpetologist and reserve manager Juan Pablo Reyes organized an expedition to explore land we hoped to buy to expand the Dracula Reserve. The expedition included Mario Yanez, a well-known herpetologist from Ecuador’s National Institute of Biodiversity. They were thrilled to discover a good population of Atelopus coynei on one of the properties we were considering!!!! They also discovered another species that had been lost in Ecuador, Rhaebo colomai, though that species was known from a population in nearby Colombia. To top it off they discovered a dramatic completely unknown frog species, yellow with blue eyes!!! This is an amazing area and saving it has become a high priority for us. We are being helped by the Orchid Conservation Alliance, the University of Basel Botanical Garden, and the Rainforest Trust.

The three species mentioned above:

Atelopus coynei, photo by Juan Pablo Reyes and Jordy Salazar/EcoMinga. Isn’t it a beaut?

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Rhaebo colomai (photo by Mario Yanez):

The new yellow species with blue eyes (photos by Juan Pablo Reyes and Jordy Salazar/EcoMinga). I don’t know if it’s been described in the literature yet:

But now the story of A. coynei has been supplemented, as workers at the Dracula Reserve have made the first sighting of its tadpoles! As Lou wrote me on July 28:

We have a monitoring program for Atelopus coynei, and during that monitoring, our sharp-eyed reserve guards found the world’s first-ever A. coynei tadpoles! This is really nice to see, as an indicator of breeding and also as a new piece of the species’ biology. I’ll send pictures to you as soon as I receive them (I haven’t seen them yet). Yippee!
Of course I begged for photos, and yesterday Lou sent some of an adult and several tadpoles along with this note:

Here are the adorable tadpoles and an adult, taken in our Dracula reserve. We are carefully monitoring the population and it looks very healthy. We’ve managed to significantly expand the Dracula Reserve, thanks to grassroots campaigns by the Orchid Conservation Alliance, Reserva: Youth Land Trust, and Rainforest Trust. The photographers of the tadpoles, Milton Canticuz and Luis Micanquer, are local residents who were hired by us as reserve wardens and have become passionate conservationists. I hope you can come and visit them some day!

I surely will. This name is forever, as the scientific names of animals cannot be changed PLUS I’ve never done anything that would make me be canceled.  Here is the gorgeous A. coynei and its tadpoles sent by Lou and photographed by Canticuz and Micanquer:

My beautiful, beautiful frog:

And the first photos of its tadpoles:

Note the developing legs:

Of course I asked if Lou was 100% sure that these were A. coynei tadpoles, and he replied:

No, I’m not 100% sure; it is their deduction based on their knowledge of the patterns of local frogs, and our herpetologist experts (who know the local fauna well) concur.

Here’s some info on my frog taken from Wikipedia:

Atelopus coynei, the Rio Faisanes stubfoot toad, is a species of toad in the family Bufonidae endemic to Ecuador. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests, subtropical or tropical moist montane forests, and rivers. It is threatened by habitat loss.

Description

Atelopus coynei can be differentiated from other similar species by its ventral patterning, thick fleshy finger webbing that covers its first finger, and from its long hind limbs that cause its heels to overlap when the legs are positioned perpendicular to the body (Miyata 1980). 

Range and habitat

Atelopus coynei formerly ranged across the northwestern Andes foothills in Carchi, Imbabura, Pichincha and Santo Domingo provinces of Ecuador, where it lives along stream banks in primary and secondary montane forest between 500 and 2,000 meters elevation.

It currently found in only four disjunct areas in Carchi Province, including two locations in Dracula Reserve and Río Chinambi.

Adults are diurnal, active on rainy days on the rocky banks of river and streams. They rest at night on the leaves of streamside vegetation. They lay eggs on rocks in flowing streams. Tadpoles are typical of Atelopus, remaining attached to rocks. [See photos above for tadpoles on rocks.]

Conservation

The conservation status of Atelopus coynei is assessed as critically endangered. It has a very small population which is continually declining from loss and degradation of its habitat, chiefly from agricultural activities. The population is estimated at fewer than 250 mature individuals.

Stay alive, my frog, and please outlive me! I know that Lou, his colleagues, and the EcoMinga Foundation are doing their best.

Stuff from this week’s Nature

December 8, 2022 • 10:15 am

This week’s Nature has four article on inequities in STEM, plus a series of ten photographs showing endangered species and ecosystems.  I’ll put up screenshots of the articles at the bottom, but hightlight the photographs instead, as I have nothing in me to address the other items, and because people may be unaware of ongoing losses of species and habitats.

Click on the screenshot below to see the ten photos. Because of space limitations, I’ve had to crop them. I’ll show five, and the captions are from the paper. And the photos are BIG, so click on them to see them in their full glory.

The intro:

Global statistics on declining biodiversity can give the impression that every population of every species is in a downward spiral. In fact, many populations are stable or growing, while a small number of species faces truly existential challenges. These photos capture some specific crises. They are images of threats unfolding, of desperate attempts at species defence and of the beautiful living world that is at stake.

The 15th United Nations Biodiversity Conference, COP15, opens in Montreal, Canada, on 7 December. At the meeting, delegates will attempt to agree on goals for stabilizing species’ declines by 2030 and reverse them by mid-century. The current draft framework agreement promises nothing less than a “transformation in society’s relationship with biodiversity”.

Corroboree frog. The two species of corroboree frog (Pseudophryne pengilleyi and Pseudophryne corroboree) are among the many amphibians around the world that have been hit hard by chytrid fungus, which causes an infectious disease that can be fatal. To make matters worse, big chunks of the frogs’ habitat in eastern Australia were torched in the 2019–20 bush fires. This northern corroboree frog (P. pengilleyi), bred at Taronga Zoo in Sydney, is part of captive-breeding efforts — some frogs are already back in their habitats, albeit in enclosures with sprinkler systems in case of fire. Frog conservation plans are being designed for a world in which chytrid fungi are everywhere; the pathogens are not going to be eradicated any time soon.

Credit: Jenny Evans/Getty

Fishing fleet. These fishing boats are based in Zhoushan, China, but they might travel to Africa, South America or even Antarctica before they drop their nets. When rich nations overfish their own waters, they often simply go further out. In 2018, the European Union, Japan, South Korea, the Chinese mainland and Taiwan collectively spent $1.5 billion subsidizing their fishing fleets to harvest the exclusive economic zones of other countries. Talks are under way on an international treaty that might ban such subsidies. Such an agreement would end a significant proportion of ‘distant-water fishing’ virtually overnight, according to the US-based non-profit organization, Pew Charitable Trusts — and would have significant benefits for marine biodiversity.

Credit: Shen Lei/VCG/Getty

Cactus fires. A helicopter drops fire retardant in the Sonoran Desert during the 2020 Bighorn Fire in Arizona. This desert was once considered fireproof. But the spread of introduced grasses since the 1970s has changed everything. In dry summers, dead grasses create blankets of dry tinder. Fires then kill native species such as the iconic saguaro cactus (Carnegiea gigantea), continuing the cycle of ‘grassification’.

The best solution is intuitive and low-tech: rip out introduced grasses by the roots or kill them with herbicide. Strategically placed fire breaks might also help to contain future blazes.

Credit: Maxime Aliaga/Nature Picture Library

Expensive rhinos. A black rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis) stands out against the golden grasslands of Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya. Rhinos are threatened in part because of the popularity of their horns, which sell for exorbitant prices as medical and luxury items. But black-rhino populations grew at an annual rate of 2.5% between 2012 and 2018, thanks to conservation efforts including costly anti-poaching measures that will be tough to maintain indefinitely. Ultimately, reducing consumer demand for rhino horn will be the best way to safeguard the species.

Credit: Maxime Aliaga/Nature Picture Library

Caught in the crossfire. Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is Africa’s most biodiverse protected area, home to one-third of the world’s mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei).

Conservationists remark that you can destroy an ecosystem overnight, whereas protecting it takes constant effort. Virunga has been threatened by war, refugee crises and oil companies that want what’s underneath its verdure. Currently, the park is occupied by fighters from the M23 rebel group. And the DRC government is considering opening parts of the park to oil and gas exploration.

Credit: Brent Stirton/Getty Images for WWF-Canon

This week’s issue is also full of inequity matter, and rather than comment on any of it, I’ll just give you the links; click any screenshot to read. I find the first one particularly interesting, as it’s an issue whose “fix”, much less its ascertainment, seems hard. Readers are welcome to comment on any of these below.

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Still no sign of the ivory-billed woodpecker—despite repeated claims of sightings

August 21, 2022 • 9:15 am

In April of this year I put up two posts (here and here) reporting sightings of living Ivory-billed Woodpeckers  (Campephilus principalis), thought to be extinct since around 1944.  My posts were prompted by a paper in BioRrχiv reporting “Multiple lines of evidence indicate survival of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker in Louisiana.” (The paper now appears to have been published in the open-access journal Europe PMC, which suggests it didn’t pass peer review in the stricter and more famous journals, like Science and Nature, that would have been appropriate venues for reporting such a stunning find. (Remember that in 2005 Fitzpatrick et al. published evidence in Science for a sighting of the bird, but no confirmed sighting has been made since then, and their paper was likely in error.)

In response to those two posts, at least seven readers claimed that they had indeed seen an ivorybill.  Here are a few comments on my posts:

. . . I think I have a video of one that I took about a week ago.

. . . I have photos and video of this amazing bird down here in Florida. Feel free to contact me. I wanted to leave the photos here however there is no way to do that.

. . . I live in west Georgia. I have seen these birds since I was a child. My grandfather told me they were indain hens. I have been seeing these birds around for over 40 years. I have a pair that stays in the area of my home now.

. . . I seen the picture of the ivory billed wood pecker in a article last week saying they were extinct. But, someone got a picture of one in Louisiana. I’ve been seeing one of those birds on my hunting property in South Texas for the last few years. I’m on the coast surrounded by swamp. That is that bird in the picture.

. . . I have seen this bird at my home in Virginia

. . . . Saw one of them in the early 2000s. Out in the sticks in Louisiana. Didnt realize how significant it was at the time.

And from a 2020 post on the bird:

. . . . I believe I may have observed two ivory-billed woodpeckers on my property. I wasn’t sure until researching both the ivory and pileated. Their larger size, which is slight, was very notable because they flew directly overhead at low altitude @ 20ft. Most notably was the striking contrast of so much white coloring against the black. They have stripped multiple trees of 70 to 80% of their bark. The trees appear dead, though I can’t state the cause. They were very active this past spring and early summer (2020), then activity was scarce. I have not observed them at all since mid-August. Their vocal calls were more rapid than what I’ve researched, but the classic “kent” sound, and sometimes a more relaxed “koo”.

I urged every one of these readers to document their sightings, publish them, and alert expert birders to them, for it would not only be amazing if the bird were still around, but it would also make the spotter famous.

What have I heard since April?

NOTHING.

What these people probably saw were pileated woodpeckers, not ivorybills.  Let us take this as an object lesson to not put a lot of credence in eyewitness evidence. Recent and videos are what we need. and we got bupkes! No commenter even deigned to reply to me or follow up with evidence.

Sadly, the damn bird is extinct, but I’ll still offer $100 to any reader who produces evidence that the species is still around—does so in a way that convinces the birding community.

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A real one photographed in 1935, taken from the Cornell bird site.  If you get a good look, you can see that the Ivorybill differs from the pileated in several ways (see here).

According to our readers, the Ivory-billed Woodpecker is everywhere! Here: seven independent sightings!

April 21, 2022 • 8:30 am

The other day I posted a video in which a researcher claimed to have sighted an Ivory-billed Woodpecker in the wet bottomlands of Louisiana. It didn’t prove to me that the bird still exists, but raised my Bayesian probability that it does.

One reason why researchers haven’t yet accepted the existence of the bird is that there are still no unequivocal identifying photos or videos of this bird in the wild. The more recent photos and videos are tantalizing, and make me think that it’s more probable than not that Campephilus principalis has not yet become an ex-species, singing with the Choir Invisible. But I’m still not convinced.

Yet over the last two days, a bunch of readers—seven, to be exact—have made comments asserting confidently that they have seen this bird. None of them have expressed doubt. My first response would be “No you haven’t: you’ve seen a Pileated Woodpecker”.  If Ivorybills were that common, showing up in people’s backyards (!), then we would have good evidence by now.

So, go to the thread here; I’ve posted all the sightings that readers claim to have made. And feel free to answer those claims (or comment on them), but be polite. My response was “find a bird expert IMMEDIATELY, tell them, and get some good photos.”  Birders can contact me if they want me to email the claimants telling them how they have to document the bird. Better yet, birders should VISIT all these people NOW.

Here we go. The first one has my response:

Another:

But wait! There are several more!

This one gives a phone number. Ornithologists and birders—GET ON IT!

 

For others who want to claim they’ve seen the real Ivorybill, here’s how to tell it from the similar (but smaller) Pileated Woodpecker. Look for the white “saddle” formed by the folded wings, as well as the sexual dimorphism.

 

Here’s the real bird from an Audubon website:

(From website): A colorized rendition of a photograph taken by Arthur Allen of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker at a nest in Louisiana’s Singer Tract, 1935. Photo: Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Do we have more evidence that the Ivory-billed woodpecker is not extinct?

April 19, 2022 • 1:00 pm

About a week ago I put up a post summarizing a new paper in bioRχiv by Latta et al. reporting the likely persistence of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker (Campephilus principalis) in an area of bottomland forest in Louisiana. Thought to have been extinct since about 1940, this largest American woodpecker was regarded as one of conservation’s great losses, like the Carolina Parakeet or the Passenger Pigeon.  Interest was revived after the publication of a 2005 paper in Science by Fitzpatrick et al., based on photographs and calls, suggesting that individuals of species still remained. But attempts to replicate those sightings failed, and disappointed birders were more convinced that the Ivorybill was indeed gone.

But now we have the Latta et al. report of living Ivorybills, and I find it a bit more convincing than the Science paper of 2005. The more recent report was based on a decade’s worth of drone and trail-camera footage with suggestive images showing the unique field marks of this bird, including its large size, its unique “manspreading” and laid-back stance on trees, and its white saddle and black-and-white wing markings. See my earlier post for the data that convinced me that there’s a decent chance this bird is still alive, though its restricted habitat would surely make it “endangered.”

The article below, from EcoWatch(click on screenshot) is of interest not because it gives new data, as it doesn’t (it’s a news report), but because it includes some newly released videos  taken in Louisiana in 2006 and 2008—between the two periods of research that led to the paper) that show more suggestive evidence of living ivorybills, including size, stance, its method of flying (sometimes folding up the wings), and white coloration.

Watch the YouTube video below and come to your own conclusions. (I’m sure birders will be more skeptical than I, and that’s great.)

The supplementary page cited on the YouTube page, which has additional video, shows that work was done largely by one Michael D. Collins, not an author of either paper. What we have, then, is one man giving his observations and measurements, and concluding that he’s seen Ivorybills rather than the smaller relative the Pileated Woopecker.  But the work was not trivial!

Now the will to believe is strong, and people want to think that the Ivorybill is still alive. But after watching the 24-minute video below, I have to say that my priors that the Ivorybill still exists have increased a bit.

Still, nobody is going to accept that this species is still alive until we get much better videos and  photos.  But have a look! Collins actually gives better location data than either paper cited above, which will of course entice the area to be flooded with birders. That may not be good, which is why those other papers did not divulge the exact location of their observations.