September 29, 2021
"The 'Lord God Bird' is dead. The ivory-billed woodpecker, a ghostly bird whose long-rumored survival in the bottomland swamps of the South has haunted seekers for generations..."
"... will be officially declared extinct by U.S. officials after years of futile efforts to save it. It earned its nickname because it was so big and so beautiful that those blessed to spot it blurted out the Lord’s name. Even the scientist who wrote the obit cried. 'This is not an easy thing.... Nobody wants to be a part of that... Just having to write those words was quite difficult. It took me a while.'"
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21 comments:
“Scientists say …”. Didn’t I hear that on the History Channel when they were talking about ancient aliens.
FWIW, the Ivory Billed Woodpecker went extinct at least a generation ago. And the Passenger Pigeon a few generations before that.
Are they certain they've got the reasons for "accelerating extinction" in the right order?
Hey, if they have a shot at bringing back the Woolly Mammoth . . .
Five bucks says a couple turn up within a year of the extinction declaration.
Climate change is bringing the extinction of science and common sense at a rapid pace.
I've been living in prime Ivory Billed territory lookin for 'em. Lots of Pileateds but Ivory Billed, elusive they are...
You know, I shot something that looked just like tha -- uh, no, never mind, it was a possum.
A rabid possum. It looked like he had a knife!
What if, this damn bird was supposed to go extinct?
Extinction is a fundamental part of evolution. By interfering in this natural process, we are picking winners and losers, not nature.
By the way, even if the cause of the extinction is human activity, I'm fine with that. Humans are as much a part of nature as any other animals, and our effect on the environment as natural as a beaver's damn or a bird's nest.
Remember the whole save the dolphin movement? Dolphins are pretty and they look like they're smiling...we have to save them. Fuck the tuna, they're ugly. (By the way, most scientists will tell you that dolphins are actually the assholes of the sea)
“…as natural as a beaver's damn …”
Hey now, watch your language. This is a family blog.
Hey, if they have a shot at bringing back the Woolly Mammoth . . .
yep. And eggs are a better vehicle than placentas -- at least for this kind of Frankenstein-ing.
The Ivory-Billed Woodpecker is not extinct.
NPR role me is wasn’t way back in 2005.
https://www.npr.org/2005/07/06/4721675/brinkley-ark-embraces-the-lord-god-bird
https://www.npr.org/2005/04/28/4622633/ivory-billed-woodpecker-rediscovered-in-arkansas
This makes me sad.
My opinion of trophy hunters is the same as my opinion of Nancy Pelosi.
There are some woodpeckers in the trees behind my house that I wish extinction upon.
@ Meade
When I was a kid, almost everyone was super excited about fast airplanes, plane travel, science fiction movies, and so on.
Nobody ever talked about all the marine life that was killed EVERY TIME a "South Seas"nuclear test was performed.
Look, we all know why the Ivory Bill woodpecker is gone, or if it is not gone, is impossible to find. It is because the people who live near where the Ivory Bill Woodpecker used to live enjoyed killing ivory bill woodpeckers. Now do passenger pigeons. Dodos. Auks. All of them killed into extinction by selfish creeps.
So much for my traditional Ivory Billed Woodpecker Christmas dinner, with rhinoceros horn dressing.
Having once seen a pileated woodpecker in Towson, MD, I must state that the emotional response to seeing the even larger and rarer ivory billed as shown in the clip was not just appropriate but unavoidable, for anyone with a beating heart.
Another misuse of the word "even."
Even if climate change plays no role in an extinction (as with this woodpecker species), it is fashionable to include it as a reason.
The ivory-billed woodpecker was last seen before WWII, and was wiped out along with lots of old-growth piney woods in the south. Habitat loss, nothing to do with climate change.
"Climate change": it's ritualistic, like genuflecting in church. In this case, the church of climate change.
'Lord God Bird'
According to ngram, someone came up with that goofy name around 1960.
The 'Lord God Bird' was originally called the 'Lord Goddam Bird' because it was as hard to detect as some bosons, I think.
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