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Birds 'falling out of the sky' in mass die-off in south-western US

theguardian.com

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Re: Birds 'falling out of the sky' in mass die-off in south-western US

#31

Post by throwaway5752 »

blahblah4332 wrote: post #9

So far food scarcity looks like the most plausible explanation. Someone needs to get a massive campaign together in flyover zones to get people to scatter food for them. Assuming appropriate feed for these species is even widely available in those areas. Probably too little too late in this case though... I guess we just update the wildfire documents to include care for migratory species and hope there's a next time

I want to point out the issues of 1) commenting on areas where one doesn't have expertise 2) not recognizing that and find credible sources of information.

No offense, but even though you projected confidence I doubted you had any ornithology background. Since I didn't either, I recognized my lack of expertise and did some good faith basic research, informally speaking, to see if I could find out what the most likely explanation was.

I found a professor at Colorado St. U. with a verified account on twitter (https://twitter.com/Kyle__Horton) who had retweeted https://twitter.com/salasphorus/status/1304973069056786432. In this case the second tweet was someone with a masters in wildlife biology research with the USFW in this area.

It turns out it is food scarcity, but among insectivorous passerines (perching birds). Numerous amateur birdwatching sites that are easy to find note how hard it is to get them to your feeders since they do not eat seeds.

Scattering food would probably be ineffective.

It also suggests that there is a problem in a lower trophic level. We've read a lot about insect die offs. Now we seem to have a die off in migratory insectivores. Maybe it's because of fires triggering an early migration that is not timed with insect population cycles. Maybe it's not, I don't know. It seems like an area to be greatly concerned about.

Re: Birds 'falling out of the sky' in mass die-off in south-western US

#32

Post by jfengel »

havelhovel wrote: post #20

I have been told on this forum that the men and women working in wildlife conservation are in it for vanity or for self gratification. Relatedly, I have been told on this forum that there is nothing that regular folks can do about climate change. But then events like this happen, and no one reflects on how fatally pessimistic this community can be. Are we ourselves not capable of forecasting the effect of a burning s…

The single most effective thing you can do for climate change, by far, is vote. The climate is one of those tragedy-of-the-commons problems that can only be solved when everybody consents to work on it together. It takes only a relatively small proportion to prevent any progress from being made.

We certainly to have enough resources to intervene, but doing "something -- no matter how trivial" fails to minimize the destruction. Trivial solutions produce trivial results. Or worse, since they often suffer from unexpected interactions from uncoordinated interventions, and delay actual progress.

We have to work together. Voting is the means by which we decide what action we will take collectively. If you live in the US, you're presented with a fairly straightforward choice on the environment. If that is your top priority, then vote that way, and encourage others to do so as well. If you're setting other priorities ahead of the environment, then that's your right, but the environment will be one of the (many) consequences.

Re: Birds 'falling out of the sky' in mass die-off in south-western US

#33

Post by ygjb »

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #24
jibcage wrote: post #5

It feels like the earth is dying. I wonder if the human population has longer than 20 years of tolerable existence left on this planet.

Mount St. Helens (in Washington state) had a massive eruption in 1980, causing huge ecological and economic damage that lasted for years.[1] But, the region recovered. Similar such natural events, such as Typhoon Maria, have caused massive casualties and damage. Yet, the Earth and humanity have persisted. I wouldn't worry about anything happening to our planet and our ecosphere, short of a mass extinction event like…

> we now have the technology to detect and divert such objects so hopefully it will not be an issue.

Citations needed for that overly broad claim, because Armageddon was not a documentary.

Re: Birds 'falling out of the sky' in mass die-off in south-western US

#34

Post by bryan0 »

The first sentence of this article describes the die-off as "inexplicable", but the sub-title gives a couple explanations including the massive fires and resulting smoke which is covering the western US. Watching the animals outside my house, I wonder how this smoke must be effecting them, but evolution must have led them out of wildfire conditions in the past.

Re: Birds 'falling out of the sky' in mass die-off in south-western US

#36

Post by gdubs »

I was walking the trash bins down our long drive to the road yesterday in a soup of wildfire smoke and fog when it occurred to me — we sure have a compartmentalized way of looking at the issues plaguing the world right now.

Part of that is the sheer complexity of our contemporary world. There are few polymaths — most are specialists. It feels like we’re sorely lacking people who see across many fields to synthesize everything that’s happening.

But it feels pretty clear that the system is on the fritz, has been for a while, and we’re incredibly stupid to not take bold action to fix it. Instead, we’re still having arguments about whether people are the cause. Of. Course. We. Are.

Re: Birds 'falling out of the sky' in mass die-off in south-western US

#37

Post by throwaway5752 »

bryan0 wrote: post #34

The first sentence of this article describes the die-off as "inexplicable", but the sub-title gives a couple explanations including the massive fires and resulting smoke which is covering the western US. Watching the animals outside my house, I wonder how this smoke must be effecting them, but evolution must have led them out of wildfire conditions in the past.

I commented somewhere else here with a link to a researcher posting about findings. The link is to a twitter thread, and several posts down they say, "The birds seem to be in relatively good condition, except that they are extremely emaciated. They have no fat reserves and barely any muscle mass. Almost as if they have been flying until they just couldn’t fly anymore."

Re: Birds 'falling out of the sky' in mass die-off in south-western US

#38

Post by aaronbrethorst »

jlengrand wrote: post #28
havelhovel wrote: post #20

I have been told on this forum that the men and women working in wildlife conservation are in it for vanity or for self gratification. Relatedly, I have been told on this forum that there is nothing that regular folks can do about climate change. But then events like this happen, and no one reflects on how fatally pessimistic this community can be. Are we ourselves not capable of forecasting the effect of a burning s…

So much this. The events from the past years have already been difficult to digest. But every time I come and read comments, I'm even more depressed, anxious. "no matter if you don't drive, or stop meat; it won't be enough". "nice that you're stopping commuting, but that won't suffice". "offsetting by planting trees is not good enough compared to net zero". Or worse, dismissive like "it only helps with your own self-…

Individual behavioral change is insufficient. A civilization-level crisis requires government intervention. Vote.

Re: Birds 'falling out of the sky' in mass die-off in south-western US

#39

Post by throwaway5752 »

pjc50 wrote: post #4

I've heard smoke inhalation cited as a possible cause for this, but it looks too early for a definitive explanation.

Where have you heard that? This field research looking at the problem, with pictures of the dead birds in question, does not indicate that's the problem https://twitter.com/salasphorus/status/1304973085833981952, and that the problem is starvation. It may be starvation driven by fleeing smoke/climate, but that would just be uninformed speculation.

Re: Birds 'falling out of the sky' in mass die-off in south-western US

#40

Post by colechristensen »

falcolas wrote: post #11
chrisco255 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The planet is fine. What would make you believe that, based on 5 billion years of geological history?

The planet may be fine; humanity's place on the planet might not be. That's typically assumed when a human comments about the planet.

I wouldn't take that as assumed or understood by most people talking about it. People have vague ideas about human impacts on the rest of the world attach a whole lot of fear, uncertainty, and doubt, and that's the end of it. It isn't a matter of being wrong, but a lacking of overall understanding. People don't generally have a solid grasp of the goals and priorities attached to their environmentalist views. (you can sub environment out for pretty much any -ism these days)
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