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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

#41

Post by csharptwdec19 »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #31
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…

> Scattering food would probably be ineffective.

We could still try scatter food.

The way this year has been we might as well help Cthulhu along and make bugs fall from the sky ourselves.

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

#42

Post by jlengrand »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #38
jlengrand wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Most definitely agree about this. It's number 1 on my list. When I moved to the Netherlands I learnt that they actually have separate elections for the water management. Almost like a separate body of the government. I wish something like this for environment was implemented, simply because people tend to vote for things that are much closer to them, unemployment, security, ...

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

#43

Post by abakker »

hart_russell wrote: post #12
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.

It would make sense. Most areas in California are covered in a cloud of smoke so thick it looks like fog. Where I live in San Diego it's been that way for the past week.

I moved from SF to Boulder over the last weekend. At the end of my first day driving in Wendover UT, the smoke was still so thick we could look at the sun directly with no eye protection. It was just dull red. In Boulder, there is STILL a haze, though there are local fires that are also adding to it.

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

#44

Post by throwaway5752 »

csharptwdec19 wrote: post #41
throwaway5752 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Scattering food would probably be ineffective. We could still try scatter food. The way this year has been we might as well help Cthulhu along and make bugs fall from the sky ourselves.

Or we could do something else that's easy and useless to make ourselves feel better, instead of dealing with the hard problems of insecticide overuse and CO2 induced climate change.

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

#45

Post by btilly »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #37
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."

Almost like...their reflex is to fly until they are out of the smoke. Which is adaptive when dealing with small fires, and lethal when they are unable to fly far enough to get out of the smoke.

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

#46

Post by mhb »

gdubs wrote: post #36

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 e…

we’re still having arguments about whether people are the cause. Of. Course. We. Are.

You seem to discount the anthropocentric argument (as it should be) and then promptly jump right in to it. Why does it matter what the cause is?

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

#47

Post by ohyes »

gdubs wrote: post #36

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 e…

But frankly, it doesn't matter if we're the cause or not, we're the only thing around that could potentially do anything to save ourselves. So ya know, we kinda should regardless of whose fault it is.

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

#48

Post by sjm-lbm »

btilly wrote: post #45
throwaway5752 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

Almost like...their reflex is to fly until they are out of the smoke. Which is adaptive when dealing with small fires, and lethal when they are unable to fly far enough to get out of the smoke.

Wouldn't the fires of the past (ie, the fires that these birds would have evolved to survive) have been larger? I've always assumed that, while fires of the past would have been more rare, they would have bigger if allowed to grow without any resistance.

I mean, all our firefighting efforts do some good, right?

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

#49

Post by throwaway5752 »

btilly wrote: post #45
throwaway5752 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

Almost like...their reflex is to fly until they are out of the smoke. Which is adaptive when dealing with small fires, and lethal when they are unable to fly far enough to get out of the smoke.

I'd be happy to read any reputable paper, article, or discussion thread you can find about it. Seems like something that would be falsifiable and has been researched already, so not worth debating about in the hypothetical.

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

#50

Post by Filligree »

sjm-lbm wrote: post #48
btilly wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost like...their reflex is to fly until they are out of the smoke. Which is adaptive when dealing with small fires, and lethal when they are unable to fly far enough to get out of the smoke.

Wouldn't the fires of the past (ie, the fires that these birds would have evolved to survive) have been larger? I've always assumed that, while fires of the past would have been more rare, they would have bigger if allowed to grow without any resistance. I mean, all our firefighting efforts do some good, right?

No, our firefighting efforts mean the fires get far bigger once they do erupt. Forest fires in the past were more frequent, but also smaller.
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