A drawer of woodpeckers (from Hedwig the Owl)
Grrrl Scientist is upset that Cornell is offering a $50,000 reward for proof of the existence of the ivory-billed woodpecker and furthermore that the federal government is devoting millions to restoration of the supposedly extinct bird. It’s an interesting account of what’s going in these days in the ivory-billed search:
But the furor has reached far beyond the machinations of a few self-important fortune-seekers: it has even infected the US government. During the past five years, hysterical public officials redirected $14 million of precious conservation funds into developing the Ivory-billed Woodpecker recovery plan — never mind the fact that this species has not been seen in more than 50 years and is extinct in the USA. But this raises the question; why not spend that $14 million on implementing recovery plans for endangered species that actually exist and that we have a chance of recovering?
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