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A third of North America’s birds have vanished

nautil.us

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

#231

Post by tguvot »

bmitc wrote: post #168
23B1 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does have a memory of cut height, and I mow it with a reel mower once a week. WRT other things taking over the yard, it's been rainy as hell here past few weeks and so the weeds have deff. sprung up unaccounted for; I just spend a day weeding mechanically, using a weed grabber tool. Both count as my workout. Headphones + podcast = no gym membership required. You'd be interested to know that this month I'll be fini…

Thanks. I use a battery powered mower, but because the fescue and clover retain so much moisture and has grown so thick, it has been really struggling (I think any mower would really) to mulch except at the highest height setting. I let it grow unhindered in the spring, and since it's been raining like crazy, I can't stay on top of it. (I should note that my lawn is probably only a 1/4 of my property.) What reel mowe…

try to use some PGR. Like primo-maxx (or generic). it should make things easier

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

#232

Post by defrost »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #141
dataviz1000 wrote: post #126

"Our findings suggest that free-ranging cats cause substantially greater wildlife mortality than previously thought and are likely the single greatest source of anthropogenic mortality for US birds and mammals."[0] [0] https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380 Studies show that outdoor cats kill billions of birds annually. Anecdotally, posting anti cat studies on social media leads to real world threats and cat lovi…

In the ACT here in Australia, all cats born after 1 July 2022 must be registered and kept indoors (or in a cage when outside). There are also 17 suburbs where cats of any age must be contained at all times. If you elect green governments, progress can be made. Here is a press release https://www.cmtedd.act.gov.au/open_government/inform/act_gov...

Also, in Australia:

Felixer, the grooming trap, works to control feral cats

    A feral cat management device that uses lasers and sensors to specifically target cats has been shown to be effective 

     The automated device sprays a measured dose of poison onto the fur of cats when they pass within 4m, which the cats then ingest when they lick themselves during grooming. The trial showed the device was highly specific at targeting cats.
https://www.scimex.org/newsfeed/felixer,-the-grooming-trap,-...

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-29/feral-cat-management-...

https://thylation.com/felixer-faqs/

    A camera based Artificial Intelligence (AI) system working in tandem with the four Lidars now offers an enhanced target detection capability that is being implemented in our new batch of V3.2

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

#233

Post by ip26 »

leeoniya wrote: post #5

climate change is always framed in terms of how many coastal people it will affect when sea levels rise a few meters. the canadian wildfires going on now. the only thing i hear about it in the media is how bad the air quality will be in this or that city, or how many oil/gas/logging jobs will be lost. the amount wildlife that is being displaced or burned alive? fuck it! did you hear that 10k humans had to be evacuate…

10% of the US population does not have food security. 25% lives paycheck to paycheck. The simple truth is people don’t have room in their lives to worry about abstract problems that don’t impact them when their basic needs are not met.

Just look to the advance of the desert. People cut down vegetation to burn for cooking, and hasten desertification. But what choice do they have? They need to eat.

Environmentalists are increasingly starting to view poverty reduction and fostering economic opportunity as a critical first step in wildlife protection.

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

#234

Post by mplewis »

23B1 wrote: post #35

One thing I dislike the most about these problems – and the information/media/activism around them – is the "solutioning". Yes, we should recycle and reduce carbon emissions and learn to live in a more integrated fashion with earth. But the problem is so diffuse and requires substantive work against powerful forces (government, business, apathy). What I'd like to see more of, when presented with these sorts of proble…

There is no individual solution to climate catastrophe. The vast majority of individuals have little to no impact on carbon emissions. We need concerted legislation focused on fixing the causes of our ecological collapse to make a dent. The market will not save us and neither will individual action.

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

#235

Post by ImaCake »

jonathankoren wrote: post #149
kelseyfrog wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The unfortunate state of things is that we've run out of the problems that we can solve and are left with the problem we can't solve. Our society/species is pretty terrible with problems that involve diffuse responsibility. Part of the problem is that we don't have social technologies equipped to handle diffuse responsibility, and another is that we have social agents who exploit this social bug to make money.

No we can solve these problems. We know the solutions. It's government regulation, complete with punative fines and imprisonment on not just corporations, but the executives of the corporations. We choose not to solve them, because it will make a multibillionare a mere single billionares and we believe this is bad, because the billionares tell us it's bad. In the United States has been an intentional, systemic, and d…

Not sure why you are being downvoted. There is plenty of precedent for society level change leading to improvement. National parks, air quality, public health, etc.

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

#236

Post by hayroh »

23B1 wrote: post #35

One thing I dislike the most about these problems – and the information/media/activism around them – is the "solutioning". Yes, we should recycle and reduce carbon emissions and learn to live in a more integrated fashion with earth. But the problem is so diffuse and requires substantive work against powerful forces (government, business, apathy). What I'd like to see more of, when presented with these sorts of proble…

Agreed. What about going vegan?

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

#237

Post by ip26 »

wentin wrote: post #210

As a new birder, I learned that birder before my time have much more fun than I do, many rare birds that we seek to see nowadays are easy spotter back then. It is the reverse experience in regard to other aspect of our life compared to time before us.

Take heart, there are positives. Now that people are paying more attention, all kinds of species are being found in places no-one knew they could be found before.

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

#238

Post by ImaCake »

Octokiddie wrote: post #82

It's surprising to see so many comments here jumping to the conclusion that the article is pointing the finger at carbon emissions. It's not. The article doesn't credit any single cause with the drop. Nor does it spin any solutions. It does note a correlation, and from that a possible cause. And there, the link between observation and putative cause is not supported: > The hardest hit were grassland birds, down by mo…

I would say climate change has, so far, been the least relevant force for extinctions. Land development and over hunting have been the historical killers. As well as cats and other introduced species. Climate change is a red herring: we can fix these problems, but only if people recognise them.

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

#239

Post by jjallen »

bmitc wrote: post #114
23B1 wrote: post #35

One thing I dislike the most about these problems – and the information/media/activism around them – is the "solutioning". Yes, we should recycle and reduce carbon emissions and learn to live in a more integrated fashion with earth. But the problem is so diffuse and requires substantive work against powerful forces (government, business, apathy). What I'd like to see more of, when presented with these sorts of proble…

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…

Yeah when 99% of people don't care about this sort of issue or are unaware of it and keep cutting trees down it doesn't matter if a few people are doing all they can.

I go home to my parents' neighborhood in Florida and more and more of the trees are disappearing in a 100-year-old neighborhood. It's not even new houses being built. These are 50-year old houses.

There is 1 house in the entire neighborhood (has to be at least 1,000 houses) that had a "no mow may" sign for the bees and isn't a purely St. Augustine grass yard. This is an upper-income higher education neigborhood too.

The culture is changing to be even less tree friendly from what it was a few decades ago.

Honestly I don't have hope in general for our future environment. I do not think we will be able to stop what is coming (both temperature-wise and species-wise). Humans are desperate for money and unfortunately making money means making things as easy and convenient as possible to get/buy.

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

#240

Post by ImaCake »

This isn’t news to anyone who is a birdwatcher. Talk to anyone who has been watching for several years and they will all say the same; that they see less birds than they used to. Quantification is good, but its advocacy, rewilding, and conservation that matter now.
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