Most of us are skeptical. One UFO report inspires dozens more, and it is the same with ivory-billeds. With a bird this rare, one thought to be extinct, only a photograph or a detailed sighting by multiple observers will do. Six months, and much searching later, we are still waiting. Sure, but it is still a statistically minute one.
Negatives are hard to prove.
Only a little. I did not expect to find an ivory-billed when I went, but this was the first reasonably credible report in a very long time, and the search was as important, for me, as actually finding the bird. I don't want to get too mystical, but going was something of a pilgrimage for me. If there are still a few ivory-billed woodpeckers with us, I hope they are in more remote areas, ones where ten thousand people can't drive up to the nest tree to gawk.