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The ancient world teemed with birds

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Re: The ancient world teemed with birds

#41

Post by icebraining »

simonh wrote: post #37
icebraining wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kids are far more destructive for the environment than cats, though.

Allowing one damaging thing isn't a good enough reason for allowing another damaging thing. In both cases the costs and benefits need to stand on their own merits.

Actually, no, I don't agree with that. It's more of a balancing act than a piecemeal analysis. Being generally frugal leaves you more space to waste a few resources on specific things. Now, some things are over the limit regardless of how frugal you are generally, and pet cats may or may not be one of those.

Re: The ancient world teemed with birds

#42

Post by ImaCake »

zdragnar wrote: post #18
ImaCake wrote: post #3

Are birds actually so scarce elsewhere in the world? My experience in a small city on the east coast of Australia is that birds are everywhere and in great variety. On a recent morning, I counted 10 different species of bird walking 500m to the shops and back. And it is hard to ignore the noise from the large flocks of sulfur crested cockatoos and rainbow lorakeets that frequent my town. I understand that what I see…

On my property in the US, I've seen bald eagles, hawks, owls, at least 3 species of woodpeckers, any number of songbirds, hummingbirds, turkey, pheasant, turkey vultures and a half dozen migratory ducks and geese species. The first year here, we didn't feed them at all- there's really no shortage of natural foraging for them. We hardly saw any of the smaller birds, and truth be told I didn't think we had many around.…

Thanks for the response :)

If I go walking in the nearby bushland (in Australia) I will notice small honeyeaters and other bird life that doesn't come into the suburbs at all. It's amazing what secrets life keeps so close to us!

Re: The ancient world teemed with birds

#43

Post by galangalalgol »

rob74 wrote: post #21
est31 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cats, as cute as they are, are a major contributor as well. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/07/cat-bird... > Feral cats on islands are responsible for at least 14% global bird, mammal, and reptile extinctions and are the principal threat to almost 8% of critically endangered birds, mammals, and reptiles. https://www.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2486.2011.02464.x

While that paper singles out cats, any introduced mammal species (rats, foxes, dogs etc.) on an island with ground-nesting and/or flightless birds is a huge problem...

Not just mammals. Fireants got most of the quail when they arrived in the woods I grew up in. Neighbors lost most of their guinea hens too. And rabbits got pretty scarce.

Re: The ancient world teemed with birds

#44

Post by devb »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #8
ImaCake wrote: post #3

Are birds actually so scarce elsewhere in the world? My experience in a small city on the east coast of Australia is that birds are everywhere and in great variety. On a recent morning, I counted 10 different species of bird walking 500m to the shops and back. And it is hard to ignore the noise from the large flocks of sulfur crested cockatoos and rainbow lorakeets that frequent my town. I understand that what I see…

I live downtown in a large Canadian city and there's magpies, pigeons, sparrows, ducks, geese, and the occasional hawk or falcon. That's just downtown. Go to one of our parks and there's more variety. An hour outside of town, even more. No, birds don't seem particularly scarce here.

Those are all birds that have been able to adapt very well to urban life. For each one of those, there are scores that haven't been able to do so.

Re: The ancient world teemed with birds

#45

Post by pmontra »

ImaCake wrote: post #3

Are birds actually so scarce elsewhere in the world? My experience in a small city on the east coast of Australia is that birds are everywhere and in great variety. On a recent morning, I counted 10 different species of bird walking 500m to the shops and back. And it is hard to ignore the noise from the large flocks of sulfur crested cockatoos and rainbow lorakeets that frequent my town. I understand that what I see…

I'm back home after one month in Australia and when I was there I noticed a phenomenal amount of birds everywhere, even in Sydney, even in the City. I think that nobody can keep sleeping past 6 AM in rural areas, but Australia is one of those countries when people wake up early.

Compared to Australia, Europe is a wasteland: we do have birds but not as many. I guess you can't have both a lot of people and a lot of animals. When there are many of us there isn't enough space left for them.

Re: The ancient world teemed with birds

#46

Post by i_am_proteus »

gaoshan wrote: post #22
est31 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cats, as cute as they are, are a major contributor as well. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/07/cat-bird... > Feral cats on islands are responsible for at least 14% global bird, mammal, and reptile extinctions and are the principal threat to almost 8% of critically endangered birds, mammals, and reptiles. https://www.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2486.2011.02464.x

This. People in suburban and urban areas should be banned from having outdoor cats, period.

Cats are very useful for removing rats. Cat ban is considered harmful.

Re: The ancient world teemed with birds

#47

Post by ljf »

est31 wrote: post #15
darkmighty wrote: post #4

Birds have been in significant and will probably continue to decline due to human activity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_extinction The main drivers I think are plain habitat loss, pesticide use (associated decline in insect population), and large scale change in available food and climate. I think the easiest to address would be pesticide and herbicide use -- widely known to have other negative side effects, s…

Cats, as cute as they are, are a major contributor as well. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/07/cat-bird... > Feral cats on islands are responsible for at least 14% global bird, mammal, and reptile extinctions and are the principal threat to almost 8% of critically endangered birds, mammals, and reptiles. https://www.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2486.2011.02464.x

Don't only blame cats:

https://www.livescience.com/27330-dogs-disrupt-wildlife.html

https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/advice/gardening-...

Re: The ancient world teemed with birds

#48

Post by [deleted] »

darkmighty wrote: post #4

Birds have been in significant and will probably continue to decline due to human activity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_extinction The main drivers I think are plain habitat loss, pesticide use (associated decline in insect population), and large scale change in available food and climate. I think the easiest to address would be pesticide and herbicide use -- widely known to have other negative side effects, s…

[deleted]

Re: The ancient world teemed with birds

#49

Post by Kaiyou »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #34
A_I wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's a massive issue in New Zealand. We have a programme called Predator Free 2050 aiming to address it. There are some very interesting organisations working on solutions, such as the Cacophony Project ( https://cacophony.org.nz/ )

I added this up the thread, but here again so you don't miss it. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/01/the-end...

What a madman. Cats > birds.

Re: The ancient world teemed with birds

#50

Post by goda90 »

masklinn wrote: post #16
darkmighty wrote: post #4

Birds have been in significant and will probably continue to decline due to human activity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_extinction The main drivers I think are plain habitat loss, pesticide use (associated decline in insect population), and large scale change in available food and climate. I think the easiest to address would be pesticide and herbicide use -- widely known to have other negative side effects, s…

> The main drivers I think are plain habitat loss Fragmentation is also an issue people don't think enough about. You see percentages of forested ground and think "well that looks pretty good" but when you go check it out it's disparate strands with fields inbetween, or thin rows of trees a few meters wide. This means only "edge" species have a habitat, and even for them their domain is not really a boundary with a f…

Going to public school in Wisconsin, I remember being taught about fragmentation and how it let brood parasites like cowbirds have better access to the nests they sneak their eggs into, which leads to the death of lots of chicks from other species. Wisconsin still has lots of forest, but with so many roads and fields cutting through them, they just can't support the same level of wildlife.
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