NY Times Bird Tales

On the topic of the NY Times, isn't the following oddly speculative for the grey lady?

A team that spent 30 days in a swampy Louisiana forest looking for a woodpecker long thought to be extinct reported yesterday that members may have heard the bird, but they did not see it.

Basically, the team looking for this woodpecker heard a rapping noise associated with it, and found some evidence consistent with its presence -- although they admit another bird might have made the sound and produced the evidence. They never found any conclusive evidence of the bird's presence. This is news?

[Posted at 21:17 CST on 02/22/02] [Link]