Ivory-Billed Woodpecker

The ivory-billed woodpecker is not extinct! This is great! (via Obsidian Wings.) Actually some bird-watchers near my dad's place in South Carolina saw one in the early 70's, on land owned by the local paper company (Union Bag). Word got around very quickly about what they had seen, and the paper company clear cut the whole area within a few days. No birds, no problem! Ah, capitalism. (Libertarians are free to chime in in comments and explain about how if the government didn't impose costs on landowners with its illegal, "takings"-clause-violatin' ways, this never would have happened. Damn you the gummint!)

Comments

[Jim Henley]

Permission appreciated. Because it certainly does smack of perverse incentives in action.

[Jonathan]

In an expected twist, the man who ordered that high clearing will die of a disease that could have been cured by synthesizing several amino acids from the saliva of the now mostly extinct woodpecker.

[Carlos]

And a pony.

[Kieran]

If only the bird had read Coase, he could have negotiated with the loggers to a satisfactory distribution of benefits and harms.

[washerdreyer]

Transaction costs would have been really high, what with the loggers having to learn woodpecker-speak.

While I undertstand that Kieran knows this and I'm taking a joke too seriously, the part of the Coase theorem about how it only applies in situations with low transaction costs is annoyingly under-taught.

[belle]

I have to admit, Jim, the reason that I mentioned it is that it did occur to me. the company might reasonably fear having almost all its timber-harvesting in the region shut down...perhaps in those days the whole "sell it to the nature conservancy" thing hadn't taken off.

[Paula Helm Murray]

I read the article in one of the science sets on My Yahoo news sets and started weeping with joy. This woodpecker is a species that is as spectacular as the magnificent macaws.

Wow. What a find. Somethiing we thought lost forever is found again. Not often you can say that.