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Bird populations in French countryside have fallen by a third in fifteen years

theguardian.com

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Re: Bird populations in French countryside have fallen by a third in fifteen years

#51

Post by gadders »

almostApatriot1 wrote: post #22

Interestingly not mentioned is that many migratory birds that go through Europe pass through a lot of hostile territory. Covered several years ago by none other than Jonathan Franzen: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/07/songbird-migration... Maybe not a significant reason for the decline; I don't know, but obviously you can't blame the conditions in France alone for a decline in 70% of migratory songbirds. Fran…

Yeah. Trying to stop shooting the shit out of the birds they have left would be a positive first step, I feel.

Re: Bird populations in French countryside have fallen by a third in fifteen years

#52

Post by hycaria »

megablast wrote: post #44
a2tech wrote: post #17

Cats. It’s always house cats.

Cats kill a ridiculous number of birds. Has there been a huge increase in cats lately though?

> Cats kill a ridiculous number of birds.

https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380 Billions is ridiculous, huh.

>Has there been a huge increase in cats lately though?

Yes, for 20 years. Dogs fall and cats rise. 6 millions cats in France in 1980, almost 12 millions now.

Re: Bird populations in French countryside have fallen by a third in fifteen years

#53

Post by jonyt »

a2tech wrote: post #17

Cats. It’s always house cats.

Possibly downvoted because of no references. So first, cats are a menace to wild animals. Second, "We estimate that free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0 billion birds and 6.3–22.3 billion mammals annually"[0]. Entirely humans' fault of course. Without humans there wouldn't be so many cats.

[0] https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380

Re: Bird populations in French countryside have fallen by a third in fifteen years

#54

Post by ZuckZack »

bambax wrote: post #50

What's so infuriating in France is that farmers are basically sacred: nothing can be said, let alone done, to curb their behavior. They benefit from all kinds of advantages: they don't pay taxes on fuel and don't pay for water (water in France is very expensive for everyone else except farmers), have all kinds of special conditions and fiscal deductions, and that's in addition to the direct payments they get from the…

Same in Bavaria.

Re: Bird populations in French countryside have fallen by a third in fifteen years

#55

Post by hycaria »

bambax wrote: post #50

What's so infuriating in France is that farmers are basically sacred: nothing can be said, let alone done, to curb their behavior. They benefit from all kinds of advantages: they don't pay taxes on fuel and don't pay for water (water in France is very expensive for everyone else except farmers), have all kinds of special conditions and fiscal deductions, and that's in addition to the direct payments they get from the…

Could say the exact same about consumers.

Re: Bird populations in French countryside have fallen by a third in fifteen years

#56

Post by adrianN »

bambax wrote: post #50

What's so infuriating in France is that farmers are basically sacred: nothing can be said, let alone done, to curb their behavior. They benefit from all kinds of advantages: they don't pay taxes on fuel and don't pay for water (water in France is very expensive for everyone else except farmers), have all kinds of special conditions and fiscal deductions, and that's in addition to the direct payments they get from the…

The alternative seems to be importing a lot of food that has been grown in countries that might care even less about the environment.

Re: Bird populations in French countryside have fallen by a third in fifteen years

#57

Post by adrianN »

tzs wrote: post #36
John_KZ wrote: post #11

That's sad, but until we get insecticides with high specificity I'd rather have fewer birds and fewer insects over more birds and more insects. Monocultures are definitely in need of becoming at least somewhat diversified because besides the birds, right now we're still at a point where a stupid plant virus or fungus can kill millions because it can wipe out half of the world's wheat or rice production.

We know how to make insecticides that are very effective, almost impossible for the target to develop resistance to, and harmless to most other species. But to do so, we have to seriously understand the target species, bit there aren't anywhere near enough entomologists for that. Briefly, what you have to do is extensively study the life cycle of the target. Insects are the biological equivalent of simple robots that…

Are you sure that hormones are species specific? A pregnant human's hormones makes certain frogs lay eggs, insulin from pigs works in humans... at least for vertebrates it seems that the hormonal pathways are fairly similar between species.

Re: Bird populations in French countryside have fallen by a third in fifteen years

#58

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

bambax wrote: post #50

What's so infuriating in France is that farmers are basically sacred: nothing can be said, let alone done, to curb their behavior. They benefit from all kinds of advantages: they don't pay taxes on fuel and don't pay for water (water in France is very expensive for everyone else except farmers), have all kinds of special conditions and fiscal deductions, and that's in addition to the direct payments they get from the…

>> Why is there no one to say, this has gone too far; why can't we hold those people accountable for what they have done and what they are doing, I don't understand.

Probably because they're growing food, which most people consider necessary.

Besides, before getting to the farmers and the destruction they have wrought on to the environment, there is plenty of scope to look at the behaviour of, oh, I don't know - the companies that sell the pesticide the farmers use, just off the top of my head? Not to mention other industries that cause much more harm to the environment than agriculture, which is, at the end of the day, something we literally can't live without.

Re: Bird populations in French countryside have fallen by a third in fifteen years

#59

Post by adventured »

adrianN wrote: post #56
bambax wrote: post #50

What's so infuriating in France is that farmers are basically sacred: nothing can be said, let alone done, to curb their behavior. They benefit from all kinds of advantages: they don't pay taxes on fuel and don't pay for water (water in France is very expensive for everyone else except farmers), have all kinds of special conditions and fiscal deductions, and that's in addition to the direct payments they get from the…

The alternative seems to be importing a lot of food that has been grown in countries that might care even less about the environment.

France has commonly been one of the five largest agriculture exporters for the last several decades. As recently as 1995 they were the world's #2 agriculture exporter after the US (I believe they're currently #6 or #7 globally, having lost ground the last few years).

As in the case with California exporting vast quantities of its water to Asia in the form of things like Almonds - at a steep resource cost for a very modest financial gain - France could clearly afford to reduce its agriculture exports at minimum cost to its overall economy and reduce the strain on its natural resources.

Re: Bird populations in French countryside have fallen by a third in fifteen years

#60

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

sverige wrote: post #2

I don't know of any studies to prove it is true, but I suspect that the US Midwest (in particular) has had a similar decline. Anecdotally I can say that there are certainly far fewer insects here than there were in the 60s and 70s when I was growing up, and also that there seem to be far fewer birds. I wonder if we'll stop dumping this stuff into the environment before it's too late. It would require a whole new way…

I wonder if many people today remember Silent Spring:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Spring

The main point of the book was that the use of pesticides (specifically, at the time, DDT) had an impact on the entire ecosystem, not just the agricultural pests they were targeting. If I remember correctly, spring was "silent" because you couldn't hear the animal sounds anymore -including birds' song.

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