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The Crisis for Birds Is a Crisis for Us All
- dpflan 7y ago"Bird" is the word today: also on the front page now: > "Birds Are Vanishing From North America": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21018916 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21018916 == Update == Thanks to @jgwil2. Changed the link (it was pointing to this page (21018850)).
- mirimir 7y agoWell, we are in the midst of the Anthropocene Extinction.
- symmitchry 7y agoWhat an incredibly depressing time to be alive.
- mirimir 7y agoIt is quite the achievement for just one species.
- chongli 7y agoWe've got a long way to go if we're hoping to catch up to cyanobacteria [1]. It's a rather dubious distinction though. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxidation_Event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxidation_Event
- mirimir 7y agoTrue enough. But that was more than one species. And it took them a lot longer, about two billion years.
- logfromblammo 7y agoWe might actually be getting help from our feline friends on this one. Keep your murderkitties indoors.
- mc32 7y agoAs bad as it is, it’s way better than the K-T boundary event.
- rebuilder 7y agoIs it? The current extinction event seems to be faster, and we're far from done.
- Ancalagon 7y agoI don't actually think it is faster is it? The KT event deposited a lot of meteoric material over a few decades but I was under the impression that most of the species that went extinct actually died off in the first few years (due to the sun being blocked by dust).
- rebuilder 7y agoThis probably requires a fairly nuanced analysis. A quick googling suggests a low estimate for the duration of the K-T event to be about 1000 years.
- mc32 7y agoOf course it's all estimates and they are getting more granular and coarsely precise with new discoveries and techniques. The Smithsonian Mag has this[1] to say: >“The climate impact was enormous,” Robertson says. “Dust and soot from the impact and fires would have created an ‘impact winter’ with zero sunlight reaching the surface of the Earth for a year or so.” >"Organisms that had somehow managed to survive the intense heat and fires now faced a new threat. “Loss of sunlight would have eliminated the phytoplankton base of almost all aquatic food chains and caused complete collapse of aquatic ecosystems,” ... All told, what evolution took over 180 million years to build up could have been cut back in less than the lifetime of an individual Tyrannosaurus rex. Death came quickly at the end of the Cretaceous." >"... Pollen and plankton, Robertson points out, actually provide a more refined picture of what happened in the wake of the impact. Nevertheless, the available fossil record shows that about 75 percent of known species completely disappeared, and things probably weren’t rosy for the survivors. “It’s is reasonable to suppose that the 25 percent of surviving species had near-total mortality,” ...but these fortunate organisms were the ones that would go on to set the stage for the next 66 million years of evolutionary history." [1[]https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-happened-seconds-hours-weeks-after-dino-killing-asteroid-hit-earth-180960032/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-happened-...
- ricberw 7y agohttps://birdsarentreal.com/pages/the-history https://birdsarentreal.com/pages/the-history
- BasicObject 7y agoAll countries should do what either Australia and/or New Zealand are doing with feral cats. Not saying it will reverse or fix the damage done but it may help save some native bird populations. I read yesterday that feral cats are threatening not just birds but keystone species (like sea otters) in the Pacific Northwest.
- coenhyde 7y ago100%. As an Aussie so i know how hard we work to control feral cats and I appreciate local wildlife. I live in Austin, TX now. No one seems to care about the cats running around. Our dog recently passed away and within a few days a cat moved in. Now our birds are gone.
- foobiekr 7y agoIt isn’t just cats. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/09/widely-used-pesticide-makes-birds-lose-weight/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/09/widel...
- ben509 7y agoTruth is, there is no crisis, because birds aren't real.[1] [1]: https://birdsarentreal.com/pages/the-history https://birdsarentreal.com/pages/the-history
- seisvelas 7y agoI get why people downvoted you, but I am very glad to have clicked that link. Thank you