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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

#101

Post by gambiting »

lumberjack wrote: post #70
briandear wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the alternative is importing food from countries who have a competitive advantage in agriculture, such as the United States — thus improving the economic condition of the 98% of French who aren’t farmers. Also, your theory holds no water: France still manages to import vast numbers of cheap Chinese consumer goods which are often produced under extraordinary bad environmental conditions. So if the idea that France…

Go talk to Venezuela about competitive advantage. They purposefully neglected their native food production in favour of food imports from abroad. Now they cannot source enough USD to import enough food and they are fucked. Food is a national security issue. You cannot become dependent on other countries.

Yes, but Venezuela isn't part of the largest trading and political union on the planet. France could easily rely on food from any other EU country and they would be fine.

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

#103

Post by pbhjpbhj »

cjensen wrote: post #20
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…

No there are not fewer birds. Ornithologists routinely census areas for species and counts. They notice when species decline in an area. They notice when new species arrive in an area. There have been zero reports of birds in general declining. EDIT: Here's a reference [1]. Note that it specifically calls out species in general decline: the Northern Bobwhite, American Kestrel, and the Loggerhead Shrike. [1] http://ww…

There are many insectivorous bird species. We've become more efficient at killing insects, and thus depressing their populations. Agreed?

What are the insectivorous birds eating if their populations aren't declining?

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

#104

Post by a2tech »

jonyt wrote: post #53
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

I'm sure the downvotes are because the people that are firm believers in poisoning the environment with sprays are the same ones that refuse to believe that little Fluffy needs to stay inside because its a relentless animal killing machine.

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

#105

Post by [deleted] »

a2tech wrote: post #104
jonyt wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'm sure the downvotes are because the people that are firm believers in poisoning the environment with sprays are the same ones that refuse to believe that little Fluffy needs to stay inside because its a relentless animal killing machine.

[deleted]

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

#106

Post by vanderZwan »

ealhad wrote: post #84
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…

If farmers are “sacred”, how do you explain their horrible suicide rate? There are a lot of problems with the french agro-food industry; but I wouldn't blame farmers alone.

Is that measured in suicide attempts, or successful suicides? Because if it's successful suicides it might just be that the number of attempts is the same, but they have more effective methods of killing themselves, like pesticides:

https://80000hours.org/2018/03/leah-utyasheva-pesticide-suic...

(I know Sri Lanka isn't France, and we cannot assume anything about French pesticide laws. I'm just offering another possibility)

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

#107

Post by jwandborg »

ealhad wrote: post #86
vincentperes wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"horrible" is going a bit too far? It is 20% higher than average. http://www.lepoint.fr/sante/en-france-les-agriculteurs-se-su...

Considering we are talking about people killing themselves, I don’t think so.

Yes any suicide rate would be horrible.

A suicide rate 20% higher than another suicide rate is 20% more horrible, which is not horribly more horrible unless we've diluted the meaning of horrible which would mean the we don't think the suicide rate is too bad.

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

#108

Post by Retric »

Outpox wrote: post #98
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…

My uncle has been a farmer for quite a while and his children took on the farm after he "retired" (you never really retire when you're a farmer). I've worked with them and I've never seen them water the crops. They don't even own the tools to do so and yet they're growing cereals (and a hundred cows) on 300 acres. They live in the east of France where I've never seen crops being watered. Not to say that you're wrong…

300 acres is a tiny farm especially for a mix of cereals and cows. It's only going to profitable with massive subsidies and as doing a better job is probably not that important vs. collecting government handouts.

I don't know how most of France operates, but small operations are generally a vast waste of resources.

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

#109

Post by [deleted] »

John_KZ wrote: post #13
drb91 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somehow I don’t see domesticated plants killing off insects. Monocultures, maybe. Why not pesticides?

What do you mean by domesticated? It's very vague. The original comment looks shallow at first, but GMOs often contain pesticides inside the seed/grain because the companies designing them don't know how to control it. That could potentially harm birds in the long run, and definitely harms insects.

[deleted]

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

#110

Post by mywacaday »

ealhad wrote: post #84
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…

If farmers are “sacred”, how do you explain their horrible suicide rate? There are a lot of problems with the french agro-food industry; but I wouldn't blame farmers alone.

Don't know about France but a definite problem in Ireland is that farming is 7 days a week 365 days a year job for many farmers and for those with a small holding making a living can be difficult. Add to the closing of rural pubs/post offices/shops social isolation is a real problem.
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