#23719: — 05/02  at  03:45 PM
Another proud graduate of the "If evolution's so great how come all those monkeys are still monkeys and not people yet huh?" school of argumentation.

#23725: — 05/02  at  04:59 PM
I can make that gate swing both ways.

1. I don't believe the woodpecker was
ever declared extinct, just missing. So
its resighting is not a return from
extinction.

2. On the other hand, it does seem to be \
true (at least sometimes) that when you
move from models to actually counting
extinctions, they drop way off.

Here in Hawaii, there is much furor about
a pretty picture book called 'Remains of a
Rainbow' with pictures of plants reportedly
on the edge of extinction, taken over 20
years. The curious thing is, that during that
period, none of these identified species
has gone extinct, and not (for the large
majority) because they were rescued but
just because species are pretty tough and
hang on.

Several native plants that were thought to be
reduced to one or two stands turned out to be hanging on
over a wide range, once goats which had browsed them down were removed.

I'm not taking a position about what the real extinction rate is, but it's pretty clear that some of the best publicized estimates are just crazy wrong.

#23735: GrrlScientist — 05/02  at  06:50 PM
The ivory-billed woodpecker was never declared extinct by USFWS, but it was declared extinct by IUCN in 1996.

GrrlScientist

Trackback: woodpollitickerzation. Tracked on: She Flies With Her Own Wings (72.9.234.70) at 2005 05 02 21:41:08
As detailed by Carl Zimmer, nothing, absolutely nothing is safe from hyper-politicizing wingnuts anymore:

#23747: — 05/02  at  09:41 PM
So far, I haven't heard any scientists offering a totally naturalistic (and falsifiable) explanations or mechanisms or processes that would explain the sudden appearance of this bird.

Why aren't the Creationists using the "discovery" as evidence for God poofing a species back into existance?

#23757: — 05/03  at  12:41 AM
Of course no species that mankind is supposed to have driven to extinction is actually extinct, we hard headed realists (as opposed to sissy hysterical academics)all know they´re just all hiding out in Argentina with Hitler and Elvis.

#23763: GrrlScientist — 05/03  at  05:08 AM
The bird was never totally gone .. there were plenty of sightings, considering that it was "extinct". However, many of the people who claimed to see the bird were attacked personally and at least one had his career destroyed, so my guess is that seeing the bird and mentioning it to anyone was something akin to claiming abduction by space aliens; it was the kiss of death.

GrrlScientist

#23867: UrsulaV — 05/03  at  06:02 PM
*sigh* Yet more proof that there is no event so inherently nifty that it cannot be turned to the service of crap...