Robots Hunt For Imaginary Bird
The search for the nonexistent Ivory Billed Woodpecker continues apace, now with robotic cameras!
Recent sightings have revived hope of the survival of the large and dramatically marked bird, with its characteristic white beak and red crest.
Now the search is on for proof — something scientists hope the robot video cameras can provide.
The cameras are part of a new project funded by the National Science Foundation to create automated observatories that can capture natural behaviour in remote settings.
"Our idea is that robots can be useful for advancing science," said University of California Berkeley professor Ken Goldberg, speaking at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Francisco.
Goldberg and a colleague at Texas A&M University have joined forces with researchers at the Lab of Ornithology at Cornell University to look for the bird in the Cache River Refuges of Arkansas, where a kayaker reported spotting it in 2004.
Recordings of what sounds like its distinctive hammering have also been made.
Before that, there had been no confirmed sightings of ivory-bills for half a century.
A few seconds of jerky video footage is the strongest evidence the bird is still alive, but some experts who have seen it say it could be showing a pileated woodpecker — a similar-looking bird that is fairly common.
The cameras have been at it for three months now. In that time they have not spotted the woodpecker. They have, however, caught some lovely shots of Elvis and Bigfoot doing the tango.
(Earlier posts here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Look, it would be lovely if this were true, but there are a lot of resources being wasted on what appears to be an agenda-driven wild goose - er, woodpecker - chase. The first reported sighting just happened to occur just when it would block a Corps of Engineers project. Nothing suspicious about that timing, is there?)
Animals, Junk Science | Gaius Sunday, 18 February , 2007
By RebeccaH, Sunday, 18 February , 2007 @ 1:52 pm
They’re wasting their time. I hit the last Ivory Billed Woodpecker with my car years ago.
By Woody, Sunday, 18 February , 2007 @ 5:10 pm
I’ll never be photographed. Never! Makes me look fat.
By Gaius, Sunday, 18 February , 2007 @ 5:45 pm
Heh