[HN Gopher] Bird populations declining fast across North America
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Bird populations declining fast across North America
Author : makerofspoons
Score : 66 points
Date : 2021-12-13 22:10 UTC (50 minutes ago)
(HTM) web link (emagazine.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (emagazine.com)
| gesticulator wrote:
| This quote is eerily similar to net result of one of the Four
| Pests Campaigns during the Great Leap Forward, where sparrows
| were targeted for extinction:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_campaign
|
| "Researchers also found that common birds from just 12 families,
| such as blackbirds, sparrows and finches, account for over 90
| percent--or over 2.5 billion birds--of total population decline.
| Experts believe that habitat loss due to agricultural development
| and intensification is most likely the driving factor."
|
| The result was a calamitous famine, and it seems big Ag is on a
| similar path, but in a wildly different context.
| nemo wrote:
| I've started going to Corpus Christi more recently for the spring
| migration and have been amazed by it. While birding elsewhere I
| met older folks who used to visit Corpus or Houston every year
| for the migrations but have stopped going, since to them it's
| depressing to see the scale of the decline of the migration and
| witness that loss.
| jonmc12 wrote:
| > The U.S North American Bird Conservation Initiative estimates
| that our pet felines kill some 2.6 billion birds annually in the
| U.S. alone.
|
| The 100M pet cats in US on average kill 26 birds/yr? Doesn't seem
| right. When I track the source[1] of research, the estimates
| include both "own" and "unowned" cats and rely on some
| assumptions like "a correction factor to account for owned cats
| not returning all prey to owners", amongst others.
|
| [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380.pdf
| rowathay wrote:
| It's an estimate based on fairly thorough research, which
| includes attaching collar cameras to outdoor cats. The carnage
| they wreak is impressive.
|
| Cats belong indoors, period.
| jxramos wrote:
| I've been counting the flocks of Canadian Geese sizes that stop
| by our local ponds. Last head count was 8 individuals together. I
| thought I recall seeing 20 years ago dozens of head counts, maybe
| 24?
| hunterb123 wrote:
| Windmills
| jeffbee wrote:
| The ranked list of human-associated stuff that kills birds goes
| something like windows >> cats >> pollution >> cars >>
| windmills.
| DantesKite wrote:
| Pigeons seem to be doing well.
| 14 wrote:
| This is sad to watch in real time our planet dying. The one bird
| I noticed doing very well this year is black crows. I keep a bag
| of nuts and throw some out my car window when ever I see a crow.
| This year it seems as if there are many more around eating from
| me. But they are a very resilient bird and can use tools and
| scavenge for food in places other birds can not.
| pstuart wrote:
| A literal canary in a coalmine situation, writ large.
|
| What is doubly distressing is that we collectively could be
| addressing issues such as these if we wanted to.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| "if we wanted to."
|
| People are too obsessed with their short term comfort and
| prosperity to consider making sacrifices for saving the
| environment, nature and future generations.
| long_time_gone wrote:
| How can we better communicate the urgency with people who do
| not find it an issue?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Outspend dozens of large deep-pocketed industries in lobbying
| and misinformation.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| I'm not sure we can match those many $Billions year after
| year. How about some kind of campaign finance reform? (a
| longshot, I know in the current political climate, but
| something that needs to be considered)
| jdc0589 wrote:
| its kind of mind boggling to start thinking about all the stuff
| we do that's detrimental to birds habitat (and basically every
| other animal). Even down to the tiny factors like yard
| maintenance: do you blow/rake/bag every little thing in your
| yard and send it to a land fill? you just stole food/housing-
| material from birds, squirrels, etc...
| moosey wrote:
| Until human society stops serving abstractions (like money) over
| things that are real, then real things will continually face
| consequence. These will still over into our lives in a multitude
| of ways until we no longer have real systems to support these
| abstractions.
|
| Loss of natural life is such a failure. Today we speak of stock
| markets, governments, businesses. Someday, our main concern will
| not be these shared dreams, but meeting basic needs. This can
| already be seen in homelessness. How long before things like this
| means our planet can no longer manage pollution, or produce soil
| healthy enough to feed us?
|
| As a believer in the concept of memetics, it is clear that
| standing in defense of the real is a battle that is being lost,
| but the consequences will not be escaped forever. One such
| consequence is the pandemic and my society's inability to deal
| with it due to serving things that aren't real. I think that a
| million dead will be remembered with whimsy in the coming decades
| as not being so bad.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| That seems a bit of a dichotomous view on a complex web of
| interconnected "realities" and "abstractions", and I'm not sure
| if "real" is a great term for an opposite of an abstraction,
| which is also real in a lot of ways.
|
| Otherwise you are getting _very_ close to the N/S dichotomy in
| Jungian psychology and the Myers-Briggs type model :D and the
| growth idea there is transcendence of the dichotomy, bringing
| strengths of both ends forward, rather than regressing to the
| one-sided way.
| Retric wrote:
| The difference between abstraction and reality is all the
| little details that get excluded from abstractions. Consider,
| people cooking at home are creating real value that doesn't
| get captured in GDP, which means maximizing GDP may is not
| maximizing the actual economy.
|
| The difference is not so critical when people are starving,
| but the difference continues to grow until maximizing GDP
| starts harming the economy.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| There are a lot more differences than that. You are
| communicating a subjective model of reality, one model of
| many, many models.
| selestify wrote:
| But isn't the problem that these abstractions exist precisely
| to help coordinate real things? The economy (and by extension,
| to a limited degree, the stock market) directly influences a
| lot of real things and basic needs.
| mc32 wrote:
| Yes abstractions here are a distraction. People will consume
| whether they hunt, barter, trade or use fist money.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _the pandemic and my society 's inability to deal with it_
|
| To put the doom and gloom in context, we had a novel virus go
| from virtually zero to pandemic in the course of a few months.
| Within weeks we had working treatments. Within a year,
| effective vaccines. Less than two years from first publication,
| and over 4 billion people have been inoculated. All within the
| systems of abstractions you decry.
|
| We're messing up a lot. And we can do much better. But let's
| not lose the forest for the trees. When we focus on something,
| we get it done, massively better so than at any prior point in
| human history.
| titzer wrote:
| Well, there's a lot to quibble about in this rosy portrayal
| of the COVID clusterfuck, particularly anti-rationality's
| rearing of anti-Science conspiracy theories and "hesitancy"--
| but I won't.
|
| > When we focus on something, we get it done
|
| Yeah, great. Can we focus on not ruining this planet for the
| stock market? Climate change, deforestation and plastic
| pollution are seriously damaging the one planet in the known
| universe that can sustain human life.
| irrational wrote:
| Which was worse for the dinosaurs, the asteroid impact or us?
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| In population dynamics, you often see periods of decline and
| gain. How do we know that this is a genuine long-term decline as
| opposed to a temporary downswing? I've always wondered.
|
| After all, not every population can grow forever. So which pieces
| of news should we be alarmed about, vs which are expected?
| scotuswroteus wrote:
| Because they've been outed: https://birdsarentreal.com
| mmastrac wrote:
| This was funny at the start, but I guarantee people with mental
| illnesses will start hopping on this bandwagon and you'll see
| people unironically protesting it.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Meh, the actual _marginal_ harm is nil. Someone genuinely
| believing in "Birds Aren't Real" was going to latch on to
| _something_.
| ctoth wrote:
| Sounds like a useful filter then.
| nemo wrote:
| While the joke's entertaining, there's an important related
| truth: birds are far more real than many things we imagine are
| real.
| effnorwood wrote:
| They're not
| 1cvmask wrote:
| At first I thought it was the new conspiracy of the federal
| government replacing birds with drones:
|
| https://thehill.com/changing-america/sustainability/environm...
| SkipperCat wrote:
| I think this and many of the similar problems plaguing the earth
| will only be solved with a drastic reduction of people on the
| planet. Get the population down to 1 or 2 billion of us and a lot
| of these issues go away.
|
| Deforesting, not an issue if the demand for lumber is cut down by
| 80%. Same for coal, oil, paving, lithium... It all gets solved
| with just less people.
|
| 8 billion people is just too much, even if we all recycle and
| take the bus.
| mFixman wrote:
| 2 billion people consuming as much as the average American does
| right now gets you in a much worse situation than the current
| one.
|
| The only solution is strong government action to reduce
| emissions and environmental consequences of consumption. It's
| not completely un precedented: the hole in the ozone layer was
| the unavoidable apocalypse in the late 90s and is an almost
| solved problem right now.
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