22 ms·

Bird populations declining fast across North America

311 points by makerofspoons 5y ago

effnorwood 5y ago
They're not
14 5y ago
This is sad to watch in real time our planet dying. The one bird I noticed doing very well this year is black crows. I keep a bag of nuts and throw some out my car window when ever I see a crow. This year it seems as if there are many more around eating from me. But they are a very resilient bird and can use tools and scavenge for food in places other birds can not.
scotuswroteus 5y ago
Because they've been outed: https://birdsarentreal.com https://birdsarentreal.com
- Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
  I figured it was more because some of the drones are out-dated. Current models capture more detail and can fly longer on a single charge, so older ones are being taken out of service as they fail, rather than being repaired and returned to the sky.
- mmastrac 5y ago
  This was funny at the start, but I guarantee people with mental illnesses will start hopping on this bandwagon and you'll see people unironically protesting it.
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    Meh, the actual marginal harm is nil. Someone genuinely believing in "Birds Aren't Real" was going to latch on to something.
  - ctoth 5y ago
    Sounds like a useful filter then.
  - Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
    It's Poe's Law running wild. Can't tell who is actually crazy, stupid, or gullible enough to believe it, versus those that just like to play along with it for the laughs.
- nemo 5y ago
  While the joke's entertaining, there's an important related truth: birds are far more real than many things we imagine are real.
- artur_makly 5y ago
  this made my day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2wir9wRp8w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2wir9wRp8w thank you.
pstuart 5y ago
A literal canary in a coalmine situation, writ large. What is doubly distressing is that we collectively could be addressing issues such as these if we wanted to.
- long_time_gone 5y ago
  How can we better communicate the urgency with people who do not find it an issue?
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    Outspend dozens of large deep-pocketed industries in lobbying and misinformation.
    - UncleOxidant 5y ago
      I'm not sure we can match those many $Billions year after year. How about some kind of campaign finance reform? (a longshot, I know in the current political climate, but something that needs to be considered)
- jdc0589 5y ago
  its kind of mind boggling to start thinking about all the stuff we do that's detrimental to birds habitat (and basically every other animal). Even down to the tiny factors like yard maintenance: do you blow/rake/bag every little thing in your yard and send it to a land fill? you just stole food/housing-material from birds, squirrels, etc...
  - christophilus 5y ago
    Every time I see someone filling plastic bags with clippings, and later fertilizing their yard, I just… yeah. I honestly don’t get that behavior.
- UncleOxidant 5y ago
  "if we wanted to." It's unfortunate, but people are too obsessed with their short term comfort and prosperity to consider making sacrifices for saving the environment, nature and future generations.
moosey 5y ago
Until human society stops serving abstractions (like money) over things that are real, then real things will continually face consequence. These will still over into our lives in a multitude of ways until we no longer have real systems to support these abstractions. Loss of natural life is such a failure. Today we speak of stock markets, governments, businesses. Someday, our main concern will not be these shared dreams, but meeting basic needs. This can already be seen in homelessness. How long before things like this means our planet can no longer manage pollution, or produce soil healthy enough to feed us? As a believer in the concept of memetics, it is clear that standing in defense of the real is a battle that is being lost, but the consequences will not be escaped forever. One such consequence is the pandemic and my society's inability to deal with it due to serving things that aren't real. I think that a million dead will be remembered with whimsy in the coming decades as not being so bad.
- karaterobot 5y ago
  Disagree with this. According to this article, birds aren't dying off because people choose the almighty dollar, they're dying because they smash into windows or are hunted by cats. The solution isn't to examine our relationship to abstractions versus reality, it's to put a screen on the window so the bird will notice it in time.
  - cmurf 5y ago
    And make outdoor cats illegal. An unpopular opinion no doubt. But from nature photographers to veterinarians, the outdoor cat is not good for anyone, including the cat.
    - digitaltrees 5y ago
      Our door cats have existed for millennia. Pesticides have not. I don’t think outdoor cats are the problem. Pesticides have killed most of the bug biomass in the last several decades and now birds are being affected.
      - 5y ago
irrational 5y ago
Which was worse for the dinosaurs, the asteroid impact or us?
sillysaurusx 5y ago
In population dynamics, you often see periods of decline and gain. How do we know that this is a genuine long-term decline as opposed to a temporary downswing? I’ve always wondered. After all, not every population can grow forever. So which pieces of news should we be alarmed about, vs which are expected?
- patall 5y ago
  From the article: > The study found that population decline was not limited to a few species but a wide range of species across every biome In contrast, population dynamics is usually concerning either a single or a number of linked species. But on the greater scale, the planet as a whole will probably rebound after humans have destroyed everything including what has made their life possible and will hence have gone extinct.
1cvmask 5y ago
At first I thought it was the new conspiracy of the federal government replacing birds with drones: https://thehill.com/changing-america/sustainability/environment/560583-the-birds-arent-real-movement-says-federal https://thehill.com/changing-america/sustainability/environm...
SkipperCat 5y ago
I think this and many of the similar problems plaguing the earth will only be solved with a drastic reduction of people on the planet. Get the population down to 1 or 2 billion of us and a lot of these issues go away. Deforesting, not an issue if the demand for lumber is cut down by 80%. Same for coal, oil, paving, lithium... It all gets solved with just less people. 8 billion people is just too much, even if we all recycle and take the bus.
- mFixman 5y ago
  2 billion people consuming as much as the average American does right now gets you in a much worse situation than the current one. The only solution is strong government action to reduce emissions and environmental consequences of consumption. It's not completely un precedented: the hole in the ozone layer was the unavoidable apocalypse in the late 90s and is an almost solved problem right now.
  - UncleOxidant 5y ago
    Sure, we did mount a concerted effort to solve the ozone problem. But that was a lot easier to do than what we need to do now. We needed to change the types of propellants used in aerosol spays and we needed to change the types of refrigerants we used - it was lucky that we had pretty equivalent and readily available replacements. But now to solve the myriad of challenges we face we need to reduce consumption of many different resources at once - sacrifices will need to be made. Big sacrifices in some cases. And given our current political climate, sacrifices aren't popular (not that they have ever been, but especially not now).
  - titzer 5y ago
    > is an almost solved problem right now. I wish. We only halted its growth and it is only barely healed. From Wikipedia [1]: > A 2005 IPCC review of ozone observations and model calculations concluded that the global amount of ozone has now approximately stabilized. Although considerable variability is expected from year to year, including in polar regions where depletion is largest, the ozone layer is expected to begin to recover in coming decades due to declining ozone-depleting substance concentrations, assuming full compliance with the Montreal Protocol.[107] > The Antarctic ozone hole is expected to continue for decades. Ozone concentrations in the lower stratosphere over Antarctica will increase by 5–10 percent by 2020 and return to pre-1980 levels by about 2060–2075. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_depletion#Prospects_of_ozone_depletion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_depletion#Prospects_of_o...
gesticulator 5y ago
This quote is eerily similar to net result of one of the Four Pests Campaigns during the Great Leap Forward, where sparrows were targeted for extinction: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_campaign https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_campaign “Researchers also found that common birds from just 12 families, such as blackbirds, sparrows and finches, account for over 90 percent—or over 2.5 billion birds—of total population decline. Experts believe that habitat loss due to agricultural development and intensification is most likely the driving factor.” The result was a calamitous famine, and it seems big Ag is on a similar path, but in a wildly different context.
- titzer 5y ago
  > it seems big Ag is on a similar path, but in a wildly different context. Big Ag is indeed on a worse path, as they are literally depleting soils and biodiversity, engineering a monoculture propped up by fertilizers synthesized from fossil fuels. It's a completely unsustainable system that is sucking the Earth dry and carpeting it over with astro turf.
nemo 5y ago
I've started going to Corpus Christi more recently for the spring migration and have been amazed by it. While birding elsewhere I met older folks who used to visit Corpus or Houston every year for the migrations but have stopped going, since to them it's depressing to see the scale of the decline of the migration and witness that loss.
jonmc12 5y ago
> The U.S North American Bird Conservation Initiative estimates that our pet felines kill some 2.6 billion birds annually in the U.S. alone. The 100M pet cats in US on average kill 26 birds/yr? Doesn't seem right. When I track the source[1] of research, the estimates include both "own" and "unowned" cats and rely on some assumptions like "a correction factor to account for owned cats not returning all prey to owners", amongst others. [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380.pdf https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380.pdf
- rowathay 5y ago
  It’s an estimate based on fairly thorough research, which includes attaching collar cameras to outdoor cats. The carnage they wreak is impressive. Cats belong indoors, period.
  - colechristensen 5y ago
    It seems like this is just narrative based judgment. Everyone is all about how reintroduced wolves are so great for XYZ because predators do so many good things for environments and prey dynamics but cats in the environment are bad for ABC and they kill all the birds, etc. Most of the places which aren’t islands had predators in roughly the housecat niche before human civilization and many of those are lost. I think it’s just the opposition by agriculture for wolves and the fact that people aren’t as affectionate for their prey which makes the “wolves good” narrative and people like birds and feel good about blaming humans so there’s “cats bad” narrative. It probably doesn’t matter, your suburban cats are killing birds in a habitat that humans already destroyed by putting a suburb there. If you want to make a difference to offset some cat activity plant native pollinator friendly plants and trees and shrubs that bear fruit for birds. You’ll make much more difference building habitat than complaining into the void.
    - MAGZine 5y ago
      There's a lot going on here to try and avoid the statement that introducing predators to a given area's biome changes the balance of things. This is especially true when you prop up that predator's existence by feeding it (and not letting its population remain harmonious with available food supply/prey).
jxramos 5y ago
I've been counting the flocks of Canadian Geese sizes that stop by our local ponds. Last head count was 8 individuals together. I thought I recall seeing 20 years ago dozens of head counts, maybe 24?
- codingdave 5y ago
  I live in a major migration path. A month ago, they were still paired up in couples. A couple weeks ago, they started flying in small groups. This past week, I've seen large flocks of geese in the dozens, and a flock of 80 sandhill cranes. The flocks are definitely gathering, but they seem to be running late this year, so you may see larger groups in a couple weeks.
hunterb123 5y ago
Windmills https://abcbirds.org/blog21/wind-turbine-mortality/ https://abcbirds.org/blog21/wind-turbine-mortality/ edit: yes cats do too, let's try to talk about it all, cat genocide if you want, windmill improvements too.
- jeffbee 5y ago
  The ranked list of human-associated stuff that kills birds goes something like windows >> cats >> pollution >> cars >> windmills.
  - hunterb123 5y ago
    Alright, can we get numbers going then, let's work through this. That's the most substantive response yet, let's source it and drill down solutions for each. Windmills are the most recent change I can think of to explain this trend. Cats, cars, and pollution have been killing birds, but maybe it's ramped up.
    - micromacrofoot 5y ago
      …it’s a 50 year trend
      - hunterb123 5y ago
        Pollution, windows, and cats appeared in 1971? 1975 is when the first commercial wind farm went up, maybe you got something :p If it was all pollution we'd see improvements as we decrease emissions. (we have been since 2005)
        micromacrofoot 5y ago
        Rough estimate is that there were ~30 million housecats in 1970 versus ~90 million today https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Growth-of-the-house-cat-population-in-the-United-States-over-time-Population-estimates_fig1_41101366 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Growth-of-the-house-cat-...
DantesKite 5y ago
Pigeons seem to be doing well.
- patall 5y ago
  Especially passenger pigeons, not a single decline in 107 years.
  - titzer 5y ago
    Ouch. (they're exinct already). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_pigeon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_pigeon
    - DantesKite 5y ago
      Feral pigeons are doing well. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_pigeon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_pigeon
      - titzer 5y ago
        An invasive species that human civilization brought with it is doing well? Hold the phone, call off the emergency alert. Next we'll be hearing the insect decline is no problem because there are more mosquitoes than ever (which we also brought with us around the world).
        DantesKite 5y ago
        I never said nor implied the latter. I’m literally just taking about how pigeons are doing surprisingly well despite bird populations decreasing.
sliken 5y ago
Doesn't seem very surprising, less bugs = less birds.
elihu 5y ago
Maybe this is related to declines in insect populations? I mean, if birds eat insects and there aren't as many insects, you'd expect there to be less birds as well.
- arcbyte 5y ago
  This was my immediate thought as well. Last year and the year before the reports were about insect populations at historic lows. Now, we hear about the next level in the food chain.
- computerdork 5y ago
  Have read that the decline in insects in rippling across the ecosystem. Here's an article in this issue in birds: https://abcbirds.org/blog/insect-freefall/ https://abcbirds.org/blog/insect-freefall/
rubylark 5y ago
> "declined by 29 percent—or a total net loss of around three billion birds—since 1970." > "estimates that our pet felines kill some 2.6 billion birds annually in the U.S. alone" So is the net loss of 3B birds since 1970 a lot or not a lot? If 2.6B birds each year are killed just by house cats, then wouldn't the decline of 3B over 50 years be not that big of a difference? It sounds like banning outdoor cats would single handedly solve the decline and result in a bird population boom.
- micromacrofoot 5y ago
  it means cats and other factors are outpacing replacement, for a total of 3 billion lost… that’s a lot. Total population was somewhere in the area of 10 billion in north america, now around 7 billion
  - rubylark 5y ago
    So I guess my next question is: what is the replacement rate? Because 2.6B dead a year from a single source when there is only about 10B alive at any one time, AND that 26% annual death not being the highest cause of bird mortality (e.g. >>26% of all birds die a year), then that means there are a lot of bird babies and a lot of bird corpses out there. The stats are a bit mind boggling for me.
    - marcosdumay 5y ago
      Most birds get into reproductive age between 1 and 3 years, and for most species a couple usually has 1 or 2 viable offspring per year. Some birds grow slower than that, but cats are usually not a problem for them.
contingencies 5y ago
Plant dense, heterogeneous local species in your garden, don't use herbicides or pesticides, and avoid prolonged or regular use of outdoor artificial lighting. Don't feed wild birds. Don't let cats out. If you have neighbours with cats, spray them with a hose until they learn to stay away. If that fails, trap them then spray them with a hose. That'll learn 'em.
fooker 5y ago
I have been visiting Bosque Del Apache National Wildlife Refuge for about 5 years, once every winter. It is depressing to experience this decline in such a short span.
immmmmm 5y ago
the single most terrifying experience of my life has been to read biology conservation articles these last two years, coupled with my increasing understanding of climate change (literature). we often forget that ecosystems (that we barely understand) provide us with crucial benefits and should be considered as (like many planetary scientists say) Life Support Systems. if there remain historians a century from now, i'd be not surprised they collectively call decisions taken now as "The Mistake".
- lambdadmitry 5y ago
  I suspect you might be experiencing the classic freshman medical student syndrome. The papers (or medical studies) need to be contextualised, and that contextualisation takes lots more of knowledge than just reading some papers casually. Instead, I suggest reading IPCC reports. While quite stark and damning, they provide context for the predictions and balance speculation out, so you don't get "we're all going to die in a decade", "our kids are going to starve to death" kind of nonsense that gets into public attention (thus incentivising lousy papers coming to similar conclusions).
  - darkmarmot 5y ago
    I suspect you might be suffering from "the hubris". We're quite well into the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction -- and it's only accelerating.
    - lambdadmitry 5y ago
      I really fail to see how suggesting to read IPCC reports instead of random out-of-context papers is "hubris".
      - meowkit 5y ago
        > I suspect you might be experiencing the classic freshman medical student syndrome. That is hubris. I have skimmed the action reports for policy makers from the IPCC. A humanist approach to the nihilism and fatalism around climate change might be that the urgency presented is what is required to make progress in a time frame where we don't meet horrific consequences. In other words, bias and exaggerate so that we take the action necessary, and not get complacent or have a "balanced" point of view - which may be sufficiently as bad as ignoring the problem altogether.
jnwatson 5y ago
I’ve always imagined that we’re in this situation of creeping ecological and environmental collapse because of a long buildup over hundreds of years of bad priorities. But it isn’t. Most of the damage has taken place during our lives. Over half the carbon humans have emitted is after 1990. This isn’t an inherited problem. We’re doing this to ourselves. Right now.
- christophilus 5y ago
  I suspect, totally off the cuff, that this is more related to destruction of insect habitat, overuse of pesticides, cats, night time lighting, and a whole slough of other anti-insect man-made problems. Global warming plays a part, no doubt, but my guess would be that it’s not the primary problem. Almost all of the yards around me are insect deserts, and these yards are common across the US urban and suburban regions. For many decades now, we’ve effectively been waging war on a key part of bird diets. Edit: also, as mentioned elsewhere, we’ve reforested, but have subsequently lost critical meadowland. And our new forests tend to be more monocrop than the woodlands of old.
  - codazoda 5y ago
    So, I prefer a dark house at night. There are even studies that indicate crime is actually lower in the dark(1). What other studies are there that indicate turning off the lights and reducing light pollution is a good idea? 1: The Chicago Alley Lighting Project (1998-2000)
    - animal_spirits 5y ago
      If you are interested in light pollution there is a fantastic documentary I would recommend called "Saving the Dark" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fHxNn-FEnc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fHxNn-FEnc Light pollution seems to be the easiest type of pollution to fix
  - forgotmyoldname 5y ago
    > And our new forests tend to be more monocrop than the woodlands of old. This is a huge problem. When "reforesting", all too often the effort is just planting rows of evenly spaced out pine trees. Pine needles are decidedly less edible than soft leaves, and the piles of needles on the ground don't exactly provide a good environment for smaller plants to grow and certainly aren't a good home for insects. People are essentially planting green deserts.
kingkawn 5y ago
We’re fucked, everyone debating the value of abstractions and other bullshit in this thread are just adding kindling
nitrogen 5y ago
I've noticed an even more disturbing trend of learned helplessness and misanthropic Malthusianism in these threads over the years. Not a single comment, at time of writing, has had a positive tone, and there are very few actionable suggestions. No consideration is given to the many positives in modern life, nor to realistic, productive tradeoffs. Everyone wants to wail in dismay at the perceived impending doom and do nothing, or they want to actively destroy modern society. Where is the hacker spirit? Where are the builders? If HN is no longer the place where people do things, then what is?
- tclancy 5y ago
  Because this isn’t about Malthus or about hacking. It’s about the fact people trumpeting the many positives tend to ignore the people capitalism explicitly does not take care of who see none of it and are ground down to an early death. I’ve been making twenty hot meals a week for our local warming center because I have plenty of free time because I am wildly overcompensated for being able to code and every time I walk in people hold doors and thank me for the small act of bringing them meals we should all have access to regardless of how capitalism values us.
- qqqwerty 5y ago
  There are plenty of folks on HN who are trying to solve climate change, myself included. But if you spend enough time in the industry, it becomes apparent that it is incredibly difficult to move the needle without significant government level intervention. For example, no matter how hard you try, there will be no profitable carbon capture venture under our current regulatory regime. Every scheme to sell some sort of carbon capture derived chemical product will fail to compete against traditional fossil fuel produced equivalents. It is a matter of physics, not hacker spirit. The government either needs to support the carbon capture market, or regulate against the fossil fuel industry. There is no "free market" approach that works here.
  - pirate787 5y ago
    The free market approach is to tax carbon emissions. Capture the externality of carbon in the economic and pricing system, and you'll unleash innovation and competition to reduce that cost.
Havoc 5y ago
So follow climate change model then? Wait until it's too late then start setting targets for today+(election cycle length) years?
foolinaround 5y ago
lawns need to go out of fashion...
pyjarrett 5y ago
> blackbirds, sparrows and finches, account for over 90 percent Among other factors which contribute to this, one thing not mentioned is that bird feeders and bird houses used to be a very common sight in American backyards, but do not seem to be anymore. I've only seen one house that has them now.
- contingencies 5y ago
  Bird feeders killed them. Also, neurological issues in birds may be due to pesticide poisoning, including indirect consumption through insects. US agriculture relies heavily on large scale use of pesticides, and the big chemical companies lobby globally to keep them in use despite known dangers. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/wildlife-officials-dont-feed-the-birds-wild-birds-dying-from-mysterious-disease/ar-AALFyvi https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/wildlife-officials-dont-fe...
  - pyjarrett 5y ago
    If you trace stories from that article it only references feeders causing an issue from a disease since May 2020, not overall since the 70s.
fleddr 5y ago
The eagerness shown by some commenters to emphasize the damage done by cats, and preferably have it codified immediately in law that they are to stay inside, is typical. It's not that cats don't do that damage, it's the hypocrisy. Cats don't wreck the planet, we do. We destroy natural habitats at planetary scale, and not just to have a place to live. We cut forests for cheap palm oil. We spill our garbage everywhere. We always go for the short term thoughtless approach. And in those places that we do live, we ensure it's as hostile to life as possible. Lifeless lawns with useless exotic plants, useless lights that for some reason have to be on all night. We've know this for decades and rather than to try and find a more balanced way, we doubled down. More cars and bigger cars. Bigger houses. A house stuffed with electronics. Eating more meat. AC. Cheap air travel. Throw away consumer goods. Excessive packaging. The cat thing is performative, like most of our "morals". An easy win to show that we care, but we don't. Not at all.
trhway 5y ago
>pet felines kill some 2.6 billion birds annually in the U.S. alone. How many of those birds are old/ill? I find it strange to say the least that all those studies lack such an important information. May be because providing such information would mean completely different conclusion - there are billions of birds getting old/ill yearly that predators normally would take of. There are only cats left around humans, so they perform that highly necessary job. There are another human companions - rats - who raid bird nests for eggs. Outdoor cats help control the rat population. There is a reason that for example a farm with a bunch of outdoor cats would have a bustling bird population. The same about several areas with large feral cat colonies that i know of - the birds are thriving there, in particular because various egg raiders don't get to walk there freely.
bartwe 5y ago
And the human population grew more than 50% in the usa in that time frame, so no wonder. (and doubled globally)
peanut_worm 5y ago
I feed a massive colony of Icterids (blackbirds, grackles and cowbirds) that live in my backyard. They are so fun to watch. I fully believe they are close to apes in terms of intelligence. Hopefully something can be done to save the declining bird population. America was able to almost totally reverse the impending extinction of Bald Eagles and Falcons through banning DDT, I can only pray similar action is taken in the future.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
shirononon_ 5y ago
Implementing this material currently and advise everyone to do the same. It is abhorrent that building developers do not include this on new developments by default. https://www.featherfriendly.com/ https://www.featherfriendly.com/
Aromasin 5y ago
A good a post as any to share the data surrounding the leading causing of habitat loss. I'll leave everyone to make their own opinions based on said research: https://ourworldindata.org/drivers-of-deforestation https://ourworldindata.org/drivers-of-deforestation
BooneJS 5y ago
We've been slowly turning our urban backyard into a pleasant place for birds, but we still have 70% grass. It's not clear to me how to introduce native grasses without upsetting my neighbors.
tehchromic 5y ago
We can and should call this a holocaust and we are the good Germans.
lotusko 5y ago
Can we also analyze these multilaterals ,like the behavioral level, birth rate, natural environment threat, human impact, geography and climate impact of birds from a more systematic perspective? moreover, the emergence of a phenomenon may be the occurrence of another pain point, or even irrelevant fields, which is a bit like neurons. The pain of a leg may be caused by some brain organization.
Gravityloss 5y ago
There's the concept of cultural landscape. It's not wild nature, but it's not industrialized farming either. There is agriculture, but wild animals can live alongside and even within it. For example there are hedges alongside fields where birds can make nests. There is no toxin accumulation in predators because pesticides or herbicides are not used. Farm animals can graze outside. There is a whole ecosystem around that with birds eating flies etc. There is no massive eutrophication because synthetic fertilizers are not used. It's kind of a steady state. Everything is designed so it can be run for centuries. It's of course way more expensive and laborious to farm like this than industrial farming. But maybe technology like robotics could advance sufficiently that we could go back towards more like this. Of course not exactly the same, but taking some ideas. Weeds could be zapped with lasers. Smaller tractors can be autonomous. Synthetic fertilizers could be used but injected underground so they don't run off or evaporate / create N2O. Etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_landscape https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_landscape
lucidguppy 5y ago
We've killed the insects with pesticides. We've drained the wetlands. What do people expect?
mwattsun 5y ago
I learned from Stewart Brand recently that we are not in a 6th mass extinction event Rethinking extinction https://aeon.co/essays/we-are-not-edging-up-to-a-mass-extinction https://aeon.co/essays/we-are-not-edging-up-to-a-mass-extinc... I was happy to hear this, because I took it as gospel that we were in one. I was told to worry about the population explosion and the coming ice age back in the 70's. So I take things with a grain of salt. (however, I am not a climate change denier) So I doubt that birds a really dying off across N America. How is this determined? I've road tripped extensively around N America in all 50 states and all Canadian provinces and the most amazing thing is how empty most of the continent is. House cats are not roaming the wilderness killing birds. If you told me birds are disappearing from urban areas I could find it more beleivable.
speedcoder 5y ago
Ask HN: anyone know how to buy bird seed not full of weed seeds: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200320132239.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200320132239.h... ?
sleepysysadmin 5y ago
>Readers can also help protect birds by taking a few simple actions. An easy one is to install window screens or eliminate window reflections with film or paint. The blame is on reflective windows? >(A 2014 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Smithsonian study found that between 365 million and one billion birds die each year across the U.S. as a result of window strikes.) That seems unreal. So I want to read said study. https://www.fws.gov/migratorybirds/pdf/management/lossetal2014birdvehiclecollisions.pdf https://www.fws.gov/migratorybirds/pdf/management/lossetal20... Oh wait... its cars hitting birds? Why did they seem to exclude this important detail? And the study clearly puts it that around 339 million is max? So the billion birds number is made up? This article also seems to dance around the actual problem? https://abcbirds.org/blog21/wind-turbine-mortality/ https://abcbirds.org/blog21/wind-turbine-mortality/ http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2018/ph240/scherr1/ http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2018/ph240/scherr1/ The massive increase in windmills is the source of death. Every single typical windmill will kill dozens of bird and bats every year. The gymnastics that OP is doing is to cover up the mass death by windmills.
- pfdietz 5y ago
  As of January 2021, the Wind Turbine Database listed 67,000 wind turbines in the US. If we take "dozens" as meaning ~60, that's about 4 million birds+bats/year, which is small compared to the other numbers being tossed around here.
cheese_goddess 5y ago
>> Experts believe that habitat loss due to agricultural development and intensification is most likely the driving factor. Yet the article suggests a number of things for individuals to do, such as installing window screens or keeping cats at home. Why? If "the driving factor" of the decline of bird numbers is habitat loss because of agricultural development, shouldn't concerned individuals be encouraged to take more productive action, such as lobbying their governments or protesting, maybe, to stop the intensification of agriculture? But, instead of doing something that counts, the article suggests doing things that have the only effect of giving people excuses that they "did what they could", so that they go on living as before, with a calm conscience, leaving someone else to figure out how to solve the real problem. I see this a lot in environmental issues but I don't want to start yet another flamewar by pointing out obvious examples. It's probably the biggest reason why most people, who are now convinced that we are destroying the environment, are sitting on their hands and feeling good with themselves while the world is burning. Easy solutions that achieve nothing are constantly suggested as "what you can do", when all "you can do" as an individual amounts to a drop in the ocean compared to what our entire civilisation must do, collectively.
- revolvingocelot 5y ago
  cf. British Petroleum inventing the concept of a "carbon footprint", downloading responsibility for emissions onto comparatively powerless individuals. BP itself continues its polluting business model, including oopsies that dwarf any imaginable individual human contribution (eg, dumping 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico [0]). [0] https://nitter.1d4.us/andrwfhenderson/status/1187386101960454146 https://nitter.1d4.us/andrwfhenderson/status/118738610196045...
AtomicOrbital 5y ago
I am not discounting the premise of this post however in upstate new york I am seeing flocks of turkeys which I have never seen until recent years ... also bald eagles have reappeared in numbers again not seen until past 5 years or so ... this is partly due to the drop in game hunters as well as a fall off of farming with many abandoned farms and fallow acreages going to scrubs ... also due to the ban on DDT decades ago ... so certainly some type of birds are seeing a resurgence
Alham-Dulillah 5y ago
Weed killers and insecticides. Birds die when you poison and kill their food.

311 points by makerofspoons 5y ago

They're not

14 5y ago

This is sad to watch in real time our planet dying. The one bird I noticed doing very well this year is black crows. I keep a bag of nuts and throw some out my car window when ever I see a crow. This year it seems as if there are many more around eating from me. But they are a very resilient bird and can use tools and scavenge for food in places other birds can not.

scotuswroteus 5y ago

Because they've been outed: https://birdsarentreal.com https://birdsarentreal.com

Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
I figured it was more because some of the drones are out-dated. Current models capture more detail and can fly longer on a single charge, so older ones are being taken out of service as they fail, rather than being repaired and returned to the sky.
mmastrac 5y ago
This was funny at the start, but I guarantee people with mental illnesses will start hopping on this bandwagon and you'll see people unironically protesting it.
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  Meh, the actual marginal harm is nil. Someone genuinely believing in "Birds Aren't Real" was going to latch on to something.
- ctoth 5y ago
  Sounds like a useful filter then.
- Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
  It's Poe's Law running wild. Can't tell who is actually crazy, stupid, or gullible enough to believe it, versus those that just like to play along with it for the laughs.
nemo 5y ago
While the joke's entertaining, there's an important related truth: birds are far more real than many things we imagine are real.
artur_makly 5y ago
this made my day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2wir9wRp8w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2wir9wRp8w thank you.

pstuart 5y ago

A literal canary in a coalmine situation, writ large. What is doubly distressing is that we collectively could be addressing issues such as these if we wanted to.

long_time_gone 5y ago
How can we better communicate the urgency with people who do not find it an issue?
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  Outspend dozens of large deep-pocketed industries in lobbying and misinformation.
  - UncleOxidant 5y ago
    I'm not sure we can match those many $Billions year after year. How about some kind of campaign finance reform? (a longshot, I know in the current political climate, but something that needs to be considered)
jdc0589 5y ago
its kind of mind boggling to start thinking about all the stuff we do that's detrimental to birds habitat (and basically every other animal). Even down to the tiny factors like yard maintenance: do you blow/rake/bag every little thing in your yard and send it to a land fill? you just stole food/housing-material from birds, squirrels, etc...
- christophilus 5y ago
  Every time I see someone filling plastic bags with clippings, and later fertilizing their yard, I just… yeah. I honestly don’t get that behavior.
UncleOxidant 5y ago
"if we wanted to." It's unfortunate, but people are too obsessed with their short term comfort and prosperity to consider making sacrifices for saving the environment, nature and future generations.

moosey 5y ago

Until human society stops serving abstractions (like money) over things that are real, then real things will continually face consequence. These will still over into our lives in a multitude of ways until we no longer have real systems to support these abstractions. Loss of natural life is such a failure. Today we speak of stock markets, governments, businesses. Someday, our main concern will not be these shared dreams, but meeting basic needs. This can already be seen in homelessness. How long before things like this means our planet can no longer manage pollution, or produce soil healthy enough to feed us? As a believer in the concept of memetics, it is clear that standing in defense of the real is a battle that is being lost, but the consequences will not be escaped forever. One such consequence is the pandemic and my society's inability to deal with it due to serving things that aren't real. I think that a million dead will be remembered with whimsy in the coming decades as not being so bad.

karaterobot 5y ago
Disagree with this. According to this article, birds aren't dying off because people choose the almighty dollar, they're dying because they smash into windows or are hunted by cats. The solution isn't to examine our relationship to abstractions versus reality, it's to put a screen on the window so the bird will notice it in time.
- cmurf 5y ago
  And make outdoor cats illegal. An unpopular opinion no doubt. But from nature photographers to veterinarians, the outdoor cat is not good for anyone, including the cat.
  - digitaltrees 5y ago
    Our door cats have existed for millennia. Pesticides have not. I don’t think outdoor cats are the problem. Pesticides have killed most of the bug biomass in the last several decades and now birds are being affected.
    - 5y ago

irrational 5y ago

Which was worse for the dinosaurs, the asteroid impact or us?

sillysaurusx 5y ago

In population dynamics, you often see periods of decline and gain. How do we know that this is a genuine long-term decline as opposed to a temporary downswing? I’ve always wondered. After all, not every population can grow forever. So which pieces of news should we be alarmed about, vs which are expected?

patall 5y ago
From the article: > The study found that population decline was not limited to a few species but a wide range of species across every biome In contrast, population dynamics is usually concerning either a single or a number of linked species. But on the greater scale, the planet as a whole will probably rebound after humans have destroyed everything including what has made their life possible and will hence have gone extinct.

1cvmask 5y ago

At first I thought it was the new conspiracy of the federal government replacing birds with drones: https://thehill.com/changing-america/sustainability/environment/560583-the-birds-arent-real-movement-says-federal https://thehill.com/changing-america/sustainability/environm...

SkipperCat 5y ago

I think this and many of the similar problems plaguing the earth will only be solved with a drastic reduction of people on the planet. Get the population down to 1 or 2 billion of us and a lot of these issues go away. Deforesting, not an issue if the demand for lumber is cut down by 80%. Same for coal, oil, paving, lithium... It all gets solved with just less people. 8 billion people is just too much, even if we all recycle and take the bus.

mFixman 5y ago
2 billion people consuming as much as the average American does right now gets you in a much worse situation than the current one. The only solution is strong government action to reduce emissions and environmental consequences of consumption. It's not completely un precedented: the hole in the ozone layer was the unavoidable apocalypse in the late 90s and is an almost solved problem right now.
- UncleOxidant 5y ago
  Sure, we did mount a concerted effort to solve the ozone problem. But that was a lot easier to do than what we need to do now. We needed to change the types of propellants used in aerosol spays and we needed to change the types of refrigerants we used - it was lucky that we had pretty equivalent and readily available replacements. But now to solve the myriad of challenges we face we need to reduce consumption of many different resources at once - sacrifices will need to be made. Big sacrifices in some cases. And given our current political climate, sacrifices aren't popular (not that they have ever been, but especially not now).
- titzer 5y ago
  > is an almost solved problem right now. I wish. We only halted its growth and it is only barely healed. From Wikipedia [1]: > A 2005 IPCC review of ozone observations and model calculations concluded that the global amount of ozone has now approximately stabilized. Although considerable variability is expected from year to year, including in polar regions where depletion is largest, the ozone layer is expected to begin to recover in coming decades due to declining ozone-depleting substance concentrations, assuming full compliance with the Montreal Protocol.[107] > The Antarctic ozone hole is expected to continue for decades. Ozone concentrations in the lower stratosphere over Antarctica will increase by 5–10 percent by 2020 and return to pre-1980 levels by about 2060–2075. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_depletion#Prospects_of_ozone_depletion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_depletion#Prospects_of_o...

gesticulator 5y ago

This quote is eerily similar to net result of one of the Four Pests Campaigns during the Great Leap Forward, where sparrows were targeted for extinction: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_campaign https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_campaign “Researchers also found that common birds from just 12 families, such as blackbirds, sparrows and finches, account for over 90 percent—or over 2.5 billion birds—of total population decline. Experts believe that habitat loss due to agricultural development and intensification is most likely the driving factor.” The result was a calamitous famine, and it seems big Ag is on a similar path, but in a wildly different context.

titzer 5y ago
> it seems big Ag is on a similar path, but in a wildly different context. Big Ag is indeed on a worse path, as they are literally depleting soils and biodiversity, engineering a monoculture propped up by fertilizers synthesized from fossil fuels. It's a completely unsustainable system that is sucking the Earth dry and carpeting it over with astro turf.

nemo 5y ago

I've started going to Corpus Christi more recently for the spring migration and have been amazed by it. While birding elsewhere I met older folks who used to visit Corpus or Houston every year for the migrations but have stopped going, since to them it's depressing to see the scale of the decline of the migration and witness that loss.

jonmc12 5y ago

> The U.S North American Bird Conservation Initiative estimates that our pet felines kill some 2.6 billion birds annually in the U.S. alone. The 100M pet cats in US on average kill 26 birds/yr? Doesn't seem right. When I track the source[1] of research, the estimates include both "own" and "unowned" cats and rely on some assumptions like "a correction factor to account for owned cats not returning all prey to owners", amongst others. [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380.pdf https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380.pdf

rowathay 5y ago
It’s an estimate based on fairly thorough research, which includes attaching collar cameras to outdoor cats. The carnage they wreak is impressive. Cats belong indoors, period.
- colechristensen 5y ago
  It seems like this is just narrative based judgment. Everyone is all about how reintroduced wolves are so great for XYZ because predators do so many good things for environments and prey dynamics but cats in the environment are bad for ABC and they kill all the birds, etc. Most of the places which aren’t islands had predators in roughly the housecat niche before human civilization and many of those are lost. I think it’s just the opposition by agriculture for wolves and the fact that people aren’t as affectionate for their prey which makes the “wolves good” narrative and people like birds and feel good about blaming humans so there’s “cats bad” narrative. It probably doesn’t matter, your suburban cats are killing birds in a habitat that humans already destroyed by putting a suburb there. If you want to make a difference to offset some cat activity plant native pollinator friendly plants and trees and shrubs that bear fruit for birds. You’ll make much more difference building habitat than complaining into the void.
  - MAGZine 5y ago
    There's a lot going on here to try and avoid the statement that introducing predators to a given area's biome changes the balance of things. This is especially true when you prop up that predator's existence by feeding it (and not letting its population remain harmonious with available food supply/prey).

jxramos 5y ago

I've been counting the flocks of Canadian Geese sizes that stop by our local ponds. Last head count was 8 individuals together. I thought I recall seeing 20 years ago dozens of head counts, maybe 24?

codingdave 5y ago
I live in a major migration path. A month ago, they were still paired up in couples. A couple weeks ago, they started flying in small groups. This past week, I've seen large flocks of geese in the dozens, and a flock of 80 sandhill cranes. The flocks are definitely gathering, but they seem to be running late this year, so you may see larger groups in a couple weeks.

hunterb123 5y ago

Windmills https://abcbirds.org/blog21/wind-turbine-mortality/ https://abcbirds.org/blog21/wind-turbine-mortality/ edit: yes cats do too, let's try to talk about it all, cat genocide if you want, windmill improvements too.

jeffbee 5y ago
The ranked list of human-associated stuff that kills birds goes something like windows >> cats >> pollution >> cars >> windmills.
- hunterb123 5y ago
  Alright, can we get numbers going then, let's work through this. That's the most substantive response yet, let's source it and drill down solutions for each. Windmills are the most recent change I can think of to explain this trend. Cats, cars, and pollution have been killing birds, but maybe it's ramped up.
  - micromacrofoot 5y ago
    …it’s a 50 year trend
    - hunterb123 5y ago
      Pollution, windows, and cats appeared in 1971? 1975 is when the first commercial wind farm went up, maybe you got something :p If it was all pollution we'd see improvements as we decrease emissions. (we have been since 2005)
      - micromacrofoot 5y ago
        Rough estimate is that there were ~30 million housecats in 1970 versus ~90 million today https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Growth-of-the-house-cat-population-in-the-United-States-over-time-Population-estimates_fig1_41101366 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Growth-of-the-house-cat-...

DantesKite 5y ago

Pigeons seem to be doing well.

patall 5y ago
Especially passenger pigeons, not a single decline in 107 years.
- titzer 5y ago
  Ouch. (they're exinct already). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_pigeon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_pigeon
  - DantesKite 5y ago
    Feral pigeons are doing well. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_pigeon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_pigeon
    - titzer 5y ago
      An invasive species that human civilization brought with it is doing well? Hold the phone, call off the emergency alert. Next we'll be hearing the insect decline is no problem because there are more mosquitoes than ever (which we also brought with us around the world).
      - DantesKite 5y ago
        I never said nor implied the latter. I’m literally just taking about how pigeons are doing surprisingly well despite bird populations decreasing.

sliken 5y ago

Doesn't seem very surprising, less bugs = less birds.

elihu 5y ago

Maybe this is related to declines in insect populations? I mean, if birds eat insects and there aren't as many insects, you'd expect there to be less birds as well.

arcbyte 5y ago
This was my immediate thought as well. Last year and the year before the reports were about insect populations at historic lows. Now, we hear about the next level in the food chain.
computerdork 5y ago
Have read that the decline in insects in rippling across the ecosystem. Here's an article in this issue in birds: https://abcbirds.org/blog/insect-freefall/ https://abcbirds.org/blog/insect-freefall/

rubylark 5y ago

> "declined by 29 percent—or a total net loss of around three billion birds—since 1970." > "estimates that our pet felines kill some 2.6 billion birds annually in the U.S. alone" So is the net loss of 3B birds since 1970 a lot or not a lot? If 2.6B birds each year are killed just by house cats, then wouldn't the decline of 3B over 50 years be not that big of a difference? It sounds like banning outdoor cats would single handedly solve the decline and result in a bird population boom.

micromacrofoot 5y ago
it means cats and other factors are outpacing replacement, for a total of 3 billion lost… that’s a lot. Total population was somewhere in the area of 10 billion in north america, now around 7 billion
- rubylark 5y ago
  So I guess my next question is: what is the replacement rate? Because 2.6B dead a year from a single source when there is only about 10B alive at any one time, AND that 26% annual death not being the highest cause of bird mortality (e.g. >>26% of all birds die a year), then that means there are a lot of bird babies and a lot of bird corpses out there. The stats are a bit mind boggling for me.
  - marcosdumay 5y ago
    Most birds get into reproductive age between 1 and 3 years, and for most species a couple usually has 1 or 2 viable offspring per year. Some birds grow slower than that, but cats are usually not a problem for them.

contingencies 5y ago

Plant dense, heterogeneous local species in your garden, don't use herbicides or pesticides, and avoid prolonged or regular use of outdoor artificial lighting. Don't feed wild birds. Don't let cats out. If you have neighbours with cats, spray them with a hose until they learn to stay away. If that fails, trap them then spray them with a hose. That'll learn 'em.

fooker 5y ago

I have been visiting Bosque Del Apache National Wildlife Refuge for about 5 years, once every winter. It is depressing to experience this decline in such a short span.

immmmmm 5y ago

the single most terrifying experience of my life has been to read biology conservation articles these last two years, coupled with my increasing understanding of climate change (literature). we often forget that ecosystems (that we barely understand) provide us with crucial benefits and should be considered as (like many planetary scientists say) Life Support Systems. if there remain historians a century from now, i'd be not surprised they collectively call decisions taken now as "The Mistake".

lambdadmitry 5y ago
I suspect you might be experiencing the classic freshman medical student syndrome. The papers (or medical studies) need to be contextualised, and that contextualisation takes lots more of knowledge than just reading some papers casually. Instead, I suggest reading IPCC reports. While quite stark and damning, they provide context for the predictions and balance speculation out, so you don't get "we're all going to die in a decade", "our kids are going to starve to death" kind of nonsense that gets into public attention (thus incentivising lousy papers coming to similar conclusions).
- darkmarmot 5y ago
  I suspect you might be suffering from "the hubris". We're quite well into the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction -- and it's only accelerating.
  - lambdadmitry 5y ago
    I really fail to see how suggesting to read IPCC reports instead of random out-of-context papers is "hubris".
    - meowkit 5y ago
      > I suspect you might be experiencing the classic freshman medical student syndrome. That is hubris. I have skimmed the action reports for policy makers from the IPCC. A humanist approach to the nihilism and fatalism around climate change might be that the urgency presented is what is required to make progress in a time frame where we don't meet horrific consequences. In other words, bias and exaggerate so that we take the action necessary, and not get complacent or have a "balanced" point of view - which may be sufficiently as bad as ignoring the problem altogether.

jnwatson 5y ago

I’ve always imagined that we’re in this situation of creeping ecological and environmental collapse because of a long buildup over hundreds of years of bad priorities. But it isn’t. Most of the damage has taken place during our lives. Over half the carbon humans have emitted is after 1990. This isn’t an inherited problem. We’re doing this to ourselves. Right now.

christophilus 5y ago
I suspect, totally off the cuff, that this is more related to destruction of insect habitat, overuse of pesticides, cats, night time lighting, and a whole slough of other anti-insect man-made problems. Global warming plays a part, no doubt, but my guess would be that it’s not the primary problem. Almost all of the yards around me are insect deserts, and these yards are common across the US urban and suburban regions. For many decades now, we’ve effectively been waging war on a key part of bird diets. Edit: also, as mentioned elsewhere, we’ve reforested, but have subsequently lost critical meadowland. And our new forests tend to be more monocrop than the woodlands of old.
- codazoda 5y ago
  So, I prefer a dark house at night. There are even studies that indicate crime is actually lower in the dark(1). What other studies are there that indicate turning off the lights and reducing light pollution is a good idea? 1: The Chicago Alley Lighting Project (1998-2000)
  - animal_spirits 5y ago
    If you are interested in light pollution there is a fantastic documentary I would recommend called "Saving the Dark" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fHxNn-FEnc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fHxNn-FEnc Light pollution seems to be the easiest type of pollution to fix
- forgotmyoldname 5y ago
  > And our new forests tend to be more monocrop than the woodlands of old. This is a huge problem. When "reforesting", all too often the effort is just planting rows of evenly spaced out pine trees. Pine needles are decidedly less edible than soft leaves, and the piles of needles on the ground don't exactly provide a good environment for smaller plants to grow and certainly aren't a good home for insects. People are essentially planting green deserts.

kingkawn 5y ago

We’re fucked, everyone debating the value of abstractions and other bullshit in this thread are just adding kindling

nitrogen 5y ago

I've noticed an even more disturbing trend of learned helplessness and misanthropic Malthusianism in these threads over the years. Not a single comment, at time of writing, has had a positive tone, and there are very few actionable suggestions. No consideration is given to the many positives in modern life, nor to realistic, productive tradeoffs. Everyone wants to wail in dismay at the perceived impending doom and do nothing, or they want to actively destroy modern society. Where is the hacker spirit? Where are the builders? If HN is no longer the place where people do things, then what is?

tclancy 5y ago
Because this isn’t about Malthus or about hacking. It’s about the fact people trumpeting the many positives tend to ignore the people capitalism explicitly does not take care of who see none of it and are ground down to an early death. I’ve been making twenty hot meals a week for our local warming center because I have plenty of free time because I am wildly overcompensated for being able to code and every time I walk in people hold doors and thank me for the small act of bringing them meals we should all have access to regardless of how capitalism values us.
qqqwerty 5y ago
There are plenty of folks on HN who are trying to solve climate change, myself included. But if you spend enough time in the industry, it becomes apparent that it is incredibly difficult to move the needle without significant government level intervention. For example, no matter how hard you try, there will be no profitable carbon capture venture under our current regulatory regime. Every scheme to sell some sort of carbon capture derived chemical product will fail to compete against traditional fossil fuel produced equivalents. It is a matter of physics, not hacker spirit. The government either needs to support the carbon capture market, or regulate against the fossil fuel industry. There is no "free market" approach that works here.
- pirate787 5y ago
  The free market approach is to tax carbon emissions. Capture the externality of carbon in the economic and pricing system, and you'll unleash innovation and competition to reduce that cost.

Havoc 5y ago

So follow climate change model then? Wait until it's too late then start setting targets for today+(election cycle length) years?

foolinaround 5y ago

lawns need to go out of fashion...

pyjarrett 5y ago

> blackbirds, sparrows and finches, account for over 90 percent Among other factors which contribute to this, one thing not mentioned is that bird feeders and bird houses used to be a very common sight in American backyards, but do not seem to be anymore. I've only seen one house that has them now.

contingencies 5y ago
Bird feeders killed them. Also, neurological issues in birds may be due to pesticide poisoning, including indirect consumption through insects. US agriculture relies heavily on large scale use of pesticides, and the big chemical companies lobby globally to keep them in use despite known dangers. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/wildlife-officials-dont-feed-the-birds-wild-birds-dying-from-mysterious-disease/ar-AALFyvi https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/wildlife-officials-dont-fe...
- pyjarrett 5y ago
  If you trace stories from that article it only references feeders causing an issue from a disease since May 2020, not overall since the 70s.

fleddr 5y ago

The eagerness shown by some commenters to emphasize the damage done by cats, and preferably have it codified immediately in law that they are to stay inside, is typical. It's not that cats don't do that damage, it's the hypocrisy. Cats don't wreck the planet, we do. We destroy natural habitats at planetary scale, and not just to have a place to live. We cut forests for cheap palm oil. We spill our garbage everywhere. We always go for the short term thoughtless approach. And in those places that we do live, we ensure it's as hostile to life as possible. Lifeless lawns with useless exotic plants, useless lights that for some reason have to be on all night. We've know this for decades and rather than to try and find a more balanced way, we doubled down. More cars and bigger cars. Bigger houses. A house stuffed with electronics. Eating more meat. AC. Cheap air travel. Throw away consumer goods. Excessive packaging. The cat thing is performative, like most of our "morals". An easy win to show that we care, but we don't. Not at all.

trhway 5y ago

>pet felines kill some 2.6 billion birds annually in the U.S. alone. How many of those birds are old/ill? I find it strange to say the least that all those studies lack such an important information. May be because providing such information would mean completely different conclusion - there are billions of birds getting old/ill yearly that predators normally would take of. There are only cats left around humans, so they perform that highly necessary job. There are another human companions - rats - who raid bird nests for eggs. Outdoor cats help control the rat population. There is a reason that for example a farm with a bunch of outdoor cats would have a bustling bird population. The same about several areas with large feral cat colonies that i know of - the birds are thriving there, in particular because various egg raiders don't get to walk there freely.

bartwe 5y ago

And the human population grew more than 50% in the usa in that time frame, so no wonder. (and doubled globally)

peanut_worm 5y ago

I feed a massive colony of Icterids (blackbirds, grackles and cowbirds) that live in my backyard. They are so fun to watch. I fully believe they are close to apes in terms of intelligence. Hopefully something can be done to save the declining bird population. America was able to almost totally reverse the impending extinction of Bald Eagles and Falcons through banning DDT, I can only pray similar action is taken in the future.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

shirononon_ 5y ago

Implementing this material currently and advise everyone to do the same. It is abhorrent that building developers do not include this on new developments by default. https://www.featherfriendly.com/ https://www.featherfriendly.com/

Aromasin 5y ago

A good a post as any to share the data surrounding the leading causing of habitat loss. I'll leave everyone to make their own opinions based on said research: https://ourworldindata.org/drivers-of-deforestation https://ourworldindata.org/drivers-of-deforestation

BooneJS 5y ago

We've been slowly turning our urban backyard into a pleasant place for birds, but we still have 70% grass. It's not clear to me how to introduce native grasses without upsetting my neighbors.

tehchromic 5y ago

We can and should call this a holocaust and we are the good Germans.

lotusko 5y ago

Can we also analyze these multilaterals ,like the behavioral level, birth rate, natural environment threat, human impact, geography and climate impact of birds from a more systematic perspective? moreover, the emergence of a phenomenon may be the occurrence of another pain point, or even irrelevant fields, which is a bit like neurons. The pain of a leg may be caused by some brain organization.

Gravityloss 5y ago

There's the concept of cultural landscape. It's not wild nature, but it's not industrialized farming either. There is agriculture, but wild animals can live alongside and even within it. For example there are hedges alongside fields where birds can make nests. There is no toxin accumulation in predators because pesticides or herbicides are not used. Farm animals can graze outside. There is a whole ecosystem around that with birds eating flies etc. There is no massive eutrophication because synthetic fertilizers are not used. It's kind of a steady state. Everything is designed so it can be run for centuries. It's of course way more expensive and laborious to farm like this than industrial farming. But maybe technology like robotics could advance sufficiently that we could go back towards more like this. Of course not exactly the same, but taking some ideas. Weeds could be zapped with lasers. Smaller tractors can be autonomous. Synthetic fertilizers could be used but injected underground so they don't run off or evaporate / create N2O. Etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_landscape https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_landscape

lucidguppy 5y ago

We've killed the insects with pesticides. We've drained the wetlands. What do people expect?

mwattsun 5y ago

I learned from Stewart Brand recently that we are not in a 6th mass extinction event Rethinking extinction https://aeon.co/essays/we-are-not-edging-up-to-a-mass-extinction https://aeon.co/essays/we-are-not-edging-up-to-a-mass-extinc... I was happy to hear this, because I took it as gospel that we were in one. I was told to worry about the population explosion and the coming ice age back in the 70's. So I take things with a grain of salt. (however, I am not a climate change denier) So I doubt that birds a really dying off across N America. How is this determined? I've road tripped extensively around N America in all 50 states and all Canadian provinces and the most amazing thing is how empty most of the continent is. House cats are not roaming the wilderness killing birds. If you told me birds are disappearing from urban areas I could find it more beleivable.

speedcoder 5y ago

Ask HN: anyone know how to buy bird seed not full of weed seeds: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200320132239.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200320132239.h... ?

sleepysysadmin 5y ago

>Readers can also help protect birds by taking a few simple actions. An easy one is to install window screens or eliminate window reflections with film or paint. The blame is on reflective windows? >(A 2014 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Smithsonian study found that between 365 million and one billion birds die each year across the U.S. as a result of window strikes.) That seems unreal. So I want to read said study. https://www.fws.gov/migratorybirds/pdf/management/lossetal2014birdvehiclecollisions.pdf https://www.fws.gov/migratorybirds/pdf/management/lossetal20... Oh wait... its cars hitting birds? Why did they seem to exclude this important detail? And the study clearly puts it that around 339 million is max? So the billion birds number is made up? This article also seems to dance around the actual problem? https://abcbirds.org/blog21/wind-turbine-mortality/ https://abcbirds.org/blog21/wind-turbine-mortality/ http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2018/ph240/scherr1/ http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2018/ph240/scherr1/ The massive increase in windmills is the source of death. Every single typical windmill will kill dozens of bird and bats every year. The gymnastics that OP is doing is to cover up the mass death by windmills.

pfdietz 5y ago
As of January 2021, the Wind Turbine Database listed 67,000 wind turbines in the US. If we take "dozens" as meaning ~60, that's about 4 million birds+bats/year, which is small compared to the other numbers being tossed around here.

cheese_goddess 5y ago

>> Experts believe that habitat loss due to agricultural development and intensification is most likely the driving factor. Yet the article suggests a number of things for individuals to do, such as installing window screens or keeping cats at home. Why? If "the driving factor" of the decline of bird numbers is habitat loss because of agricultural development, shouldn't concerned individuals be encouraged to take more productive action, such as lobbying their governments or protesting, maybe, to stop the intensification of agriculture? But, instead of doing something that counts, the article suggests doing things that have the only effect of giving people excuses that they "did what they could", so that they go on living as before, with a calm conscience, leaving someone else to figure out how to solve the real problem. I see this a lot in environmental issues but I don't want to start yet another flamewar by pointing out obvious examples. It's probably the biggest reason why most people, who are now convinced that we are destroying the environment, are sitting on their hands and feeling good with themselves while the world is burning. Easy solutions that achieve nothing are constantly suggested as "what you can do", when all "you can do" as an individual amounts to a drop in the ocean compared to what our entire civilisation must do, collectively.

revolvingocelot 5y ago
cf. British Petroleum inventing the concept of a "carbon footprint", downloading responsibility for emissions onto comparatively powerless individuals. BP itself continues its polluting business model, including oopsies that dwarf any imaginable individual human contribution (eg, dumping 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico [0]). [0] https://nitter.1d4.us/andrwfhenderson/status/1187386101960454146 https://nitter.1d4.us/andrwfhenderson/status/118738610196045...

AtomicOrbital 5y ago

I am not discounting the premise of this post however in upstate new york I am seeing flocks of turkeys which I have never seen until recent years ... also bald eagles have reappeared in numbers again not seen until past 5 years or so ... this is partly due to the drop in game hunters as well as a fall off of farming with many abandoned farms and fallow acreages going to scrubs ... also due to the ban on DDT decades ago ... so certainly some type of birds are seeing a resurgence

Alham-Dulillah 5y ago

Weed killers and insecticides. Birds die when you poison and kill their food.