A third of North America’s birds have vanished • Hacker News Board

Re: A third of North America’s birds have vanished

#451

Post by mintaka5 » Sun, Jul 16, 2023, 7:09 PM UTC

kjkjadksj wrote: post #444

mintaka5 wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know your intentions are good here, but honestly the less human interference the better. we didn't design their habitats, and i highly doubt we'd get it better than mother nature did. we humans are an self-excluding and blameless bunch. we constantly lust for providing solutions for ecology, but no matter how much "solutioning" we throw at it, the problem cannot, and will never be fixed by human involvement. the be…

The main issue with humans and their ancestors and the environment is from agriculture. We went from hunting and gathering for millions of years, skimming excess carrying capacity off the land in low numbers, to agriculture only a few thousands of years ago, where we manipulate the environment to suit our needs where we are. We just aren’t adapted to agriculture let alone modern life. Mutually beneficial symbiotic re…

indeed

Re: A third of North America’s birds have vanished

#452

Post by nemo » Sun, Jul 16, 2023, 7:11 PM UTC

thebigjewbowski wrote: post #249

nemo wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah a lot of inhabitants of a healthy habitat are labeled culturally as "pests" and "pest control" does a lot of damage to native plants, insects, birds, and other wildlife. I go out identifying insects under my porch lights or out in the yard submitting iNaturalist observations. There' an amazing, diverse natural world out there that can be accessible in a local yard that's a native habitat. I'm up to 400 species a…

> But in reality there's a lot of people who see any snake, insect, or arachnid, and respond with "kill it with fire." Did you have a natural (or learned) revulsion for bugs? If so, how did you get over it? I’ve gotten over mice completely, never felt right killing one in the first place. I’ve been trying to make peace with bugs; I unplugged my mosquito zappers last summer shortly after getting them when I realized t…

Sorry, late reply. I've never really had any serious issues with bugs, but desensitization by exposure is the way to go. I've used the iNaturalist app photographing and identifying insects for years, so when I find a new to me species I learn about their life history, and explore what I've seen in its taxonomy. So I'm comfortable around most bugs now since I know which are harmless, and which are the handful that have a sting/bite they'll actually use. Most insects, like most animals, don't want to fight, and would prefer to be left alone. Bees aren't going to sting unless you harass them or you threaten their hive, most wasps don't sting, and very few are aggressive. Grasshoppers and katydids totally do bite though, they scare me. Also I steer clear of anything that looks like a fire ant, centipede, warrior wasps, hornet, or yellowjacket.

Re: A third of North America’s birds have vanished

#453

Post by travisporter » Sun, Jul 16, 2023, 7:11 PM UTC

uoaei wrote: post #274

travisporter wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average faucet puts out about 2 gallons per min. Even if i turn off the faucet between scrubbing it would take more than two mins of the faucet on for me. I do agree that it me use more dishes so there’s that.

You turn the faucet on at full blast every time you open it? I let out enough to rinse, but you do most of the mixing of soap and water for rinsing mechanically rather than just trying to blast it away with a high-pressure water stream.

Excellent point I don’t. But on the flip side I know I cannot use as little soap as a dishwasher since it’s down the drain

Re: A third of North America’s birds have vanished

#454

Post by ostenning » Sun, Jul 16, 2023, 7:32 PM UTC

ChatGTP wrote: post #262

Does anyone else see headlines like this and instantly interpolate birds with people? We still heavily rely on the biosphere for our well being and survival and with the advancements of AI and Robotics designed to super-charge corporations ability to rape and pillage faster and harder than ever before, I just can't imagine a situation where we don't see headlines about humans disappearing either. I mean who knows, it…

Theres a book called Ishmael by Daniel Quinn that your comment reminded me of

Re: A third of North America’s birds have vanished

#455

Post by badpun » Sun, Jul 16, 2023, 7:35 PM UTC

kjkjadksj wrote: post #443

badpun wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We did that in preindustrial age. In total, it didn’t amount to that much energy.

We at most did things like run a mill on a river. Now compare the megawatt output of a proper modern hydroelectric project and say it isn't much energy. Imagine a society side stepping coalburning and going right to big hydro projects. Even something like a forest specifically grown and cultivated for energy is a relatively new idea, and doesn’t require any real technology even beyond understanding systems theory.

Big hydro requires ungodly amounts of reinforced concrete, labor (to dig millions of cubic meters on earth) and transportation capacity (gotta transport that concrete on site - hard to do with ox-powered carriages on unpaved roads). I can't see say Louis the XIV's France ever pulling that off.

Re: A third of North America’s birds have vanished

#456

Post by jibbit » Sun, Jul 16, 2023, 7:52 PM UTC

kjkjadksj wrote: post #437

arcticbull wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it might have something to do with feral and outdoor cats killing 1.4-3.7 billion birds per year in the US alone. [1] Individuals can do something here I wager, between education and taking responsibility by spaying and neutering. It’s pretty wild to me that cats aren’t mentioned at all in this article since they’re absolutely massacring wild birds. They’re the leading cause of both bird and small mammal deat…

Cats in europe are even worse. You go to certain cities and there are thousands of strays lying on the roads and roofs, populations seemingly sustained by dumpster diving, rats, plus plenty of restaurant owners or workers straight up feed the cats regularly. There are seemingly no catch and fix programs like in the US.

a quick google search tells me that there are 75 million feral cats in the usa, far more than any other country - by area or population or any way you want to measure it

Re: A third of North America’s birds have vanished

#457

Post by scientator » Sun, Jul 16, 2023, 8:13 PM UTC

jorvi wrote: post #394

arcticbull wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it might have something to do with feral and outdoor cats killing 1.4-3.7 billion birds per year in the US alone. [1] Individuals can do something here I wager, between education and taking responsibility by spaying and neutering. It’s pretty wild to me that cats aren’t mentioned at all in this article since they’re absolutely massacring wild birds. They’re the leading cause of both bird and small mammal deat…

I am pretty pro-climate / nature, but from a pure scientific bent and it is enlightening (and frightening) the frothing rage you get from most “green” people if you point out that having outdoor cats and having kids are two of the most damaging things you can do to your environment.

You should also include dogs in your list of damaging things:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg25433840-800-how-a-bi...

"Birds, it turns out, seem to be particularly sensitised to dogs – even on leads. In woodlands outside Sydney, for example, a study found that people walking leashed dogs caused a 'dramatic' reduction in the diversity and abundance of birds – more than double that caused by the same number of people walking without pets."

Re: A third of North America’s birds have vanished

#458

Post by b112 » Sun, Jul 16, 2023, 8:18 PM UTC

arcticbull wrote: post #341

b112 wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that cats kill a lot of birds and something needs to be done about this. Outside of birds, cats kill rodents. I live in rural Quebec, near farms, a massive nature preserve, and a national park larger than small US states. When I first moved here, I had no cat, and several other neighbours were new to the area. Old houses, not fresh builds, just changeover of owners... they too with no cats. The first year I w…

If they only killed mice that would be a fun fact, but they also kill 20 billion small mammals a year, lol. The point was though that cats are killing all the birds, that they help a few people with a mouse problem is tangential at best to the topic at hand. I can accept that mice are a problem and cats are killing all the birds and small mammals at the same time. It’s kind of like saying DDT is fine actually because…

that they help a few people with a mouse problem is tangenti

You like to eat, yes? Because I assure you, without cats, or something to replace them that does what cats do, you and I will starve to death.

Farmers don't have cats because they're cute. 3They have them to stop rodents from eating silo, seeds, fields bare.

What do you plan to do? Spray death chemicals all over the place, as a replacement?

And no, trapping won't work. It never kills enough, and there are never enough traps.

Honestly, I sincerely doubt cats are the issue. Cats do very poorly away from human settlements, and therefore there's loads of area without cat habitat. In Canada, most of the land is cat free, there is so much land without cats, it would be impossible for them to wipe out a noticeable percentage of birds.

There's no way they're the problem, as a result of this, when we're talking about 1/3 of the birds.

A far better explanation is insect population collapse. Missing food.

Re: A third of North America’s birds have vanished

#459

Post by Timon3 » Sun, Jul 16, 2023, 9:14 PM UTC

brutusborn wrote: post #445

Timon3 wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I disagree, you can’t tell how useful their model is for assessing impact on animal and plant species because they do not have any animal or plant data in their model. Maybe animals and plants can move faster than we thought so the current velocity doesn’t dictate local extinctions? Maybe temperature velocity is a bad measure of climate change rate with respect to ecosystems? Are they making any judgement on this?…

I admit I’m probably being a bit too picky, but I honestly don’t think this is how science works, I think this paper is a good example of the problem of low quality papers clogging up academic publishing due to perverse incentives. I had a quick look through the first half dozen citations on the paper, and it is a lot of stuff like this: “The effects of modern climate change are occurring more quickly in grasslands r…

> I had a quick look through the first half dozen citations on the paper, and it is a lot of stuff like this: “The effects of modern climate change are occurring more quickly in grasslands relative to many other ecosystems (Loarie et al. 2009;” This quote doesn’t really use any of the data/methods of the original paper, it just uses the paper to support the fairly obvious idea that climate change has variable effects that differ by environment.

I don't see a reference to Loarie et al. 2009, and I can't find that quote in the article.

> Another: “ On the other hand, the climate is shifting rapidly (Loarie et al. 2009)” again nothing is the paper is used, and they claim the paper says change is rapid, but to determine what is “rapid” we would need to compare our velocity to a value we think is “not rabid”. This would provide us with some testable hypothesis (eg “2% of regions move velocity faster than the fastest moving population in the region”).

Same goes for this.

Re: A third of North America’s birds have vanished

#460

Post by pvaldes » Sun, Jul 16, 2023, 9:37 PM UTC

roughly wrote: post #228

bmitc wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Individuals cannot solve this. I leave trees up, dead or alive. I plant native plants. I remove invasive species. I only keep invasive bushes if they house birds. I don't spray for insects except around the base of my house, I don't kill off chipmunks, voles, squirrels, rabbits, etc. How can this compete with the dozens of neighbors in a half-mile radius that have removed in excess of hundreds of trees, big ones like…

I don’t have a solution, but I just wanted to say thank you for doing whatever you can. It’s frustrating as fuck but it’s what we’ve got and it’s the only way I can sleep at night, so thanks for being another person doing the right thing.

Just do it because you will have a better life. You don't need much more reasons than this.

Walking barefoot in the wet grass while sipping your coffee, and smirking at the neighbors that still keep doing it wrong is optional.

In most places, the probability of a snake or a racoon hiding in the grass to attack you is negligible. We are loud. They have better things to do and plenty of places to run away.