Silent Skies: Billions of North American Birds Have Vanished

[JacksinPA]

Silent Skies: Billions of North American Birds Have Vanished - Scientific American

Though waterfowl and raptor populations have made recoveries, bird populations have declined since 1970 across nearly all habitats

More than half a century ago, conservationist Rachel Carson sounded an alarm about human impacts on the natural world with her book Silent Spring. Its title alluded to the loss of twittering birds from natural habitats because of indiscriminate pesticide use, and the treatise spawned the modern conservation movement. But new research published Thursday in Science shows bird populations have continued to plummet in the past five decades, dropping by nearly three billion across North America—an overall decline of 29 percent from 1970.

Ken Rosenberg, the study’s lead author and a senior scientist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the nonprofit American Bird Conservancy, says the magnitude of the decline could significantly affect the continent’s food webs and ecosystems. “We’re talking about pest control, we’re talking about pollination [and] seed dispersal,” he says, referring to the roles birds play in ecosystems. Because it is relatively easy to monitor birds, he adds, their presence or absence in a habitat can be a useful indicator of other environmental trends. Based on the paper’s results, he says, “we can be pretty sure that other parts of the ecosystem are also in decline and degradation.”
====================================================
When I moved to suburban Phila 5 years ago my wife & I chose a house with a porch on a quiet, tree-lined street. There were plenty of birds - humming birds & mating pairs of cardinals among them. I would spend hours in the afternoons admiring them, even enjoying the frequent visits of hummingbirds to a feeder I put up. But in the last 3 months I have seen perhaps fewer than 10 birds when I would have expected to see many dozens.

This afternoon, over lunch, I saw one bird in an hour: a turkey buzzard, a large, hardy carrion scavenger. But the smaller birds are gone. As are the butterflies after I spent several hundred dollars to plant a butterfly garden off the end of the porch.

If the people in charge don't recognize the fact that we're at or beyond the tipping point in our ecosystem, we face an unpromising future. Thanks to Exxon-Mobil, Shell, BP & the the coal burning power industry & the idiots who are running this country.

 

[braindrain]

Silent Skies: Billions of North American Birds Have Vanished - Scientific American

Though waterfowl and raptor populations have made recoveries, bird populations have declined since 1970 across nearly all habitats

More than half a century ago, conservationist Rachel Carson sounded an alarm about human impacts on the natural world with her book Silent Spring. Its title alluded to the loss of twittering birds from natural habitats because of indiscriminate pesticide use, and the treatise spawned the modern conservation movement. But new research published Thursday in Science shows bird populations have continued to plummet in the past five decades, dropping by nearly three billion across North America—an overall decline of 29 percent from 1970.

Ken Rosenberg, the study’s lead author and a senior scientist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the nonprofit American Bird Conservancy, says the magnitude of the decline could significantly affect the continent’s food webs and ecosystems. “We’re talking about pest control, we’re talking about pollination [and] seed dispersal,” he says, referring to the roles birds play in ecosystems. Because it is relatively easy to monitor birds, he adds, their presence or absence in a habitat can be a useful indicator of other environmental trends. Based on the paper’s results, he says, “we can be pretty sure that other parts of the ecosystem are also in decline and degradation.”
====================================================
When I moved to suburban Phila 5 years ago my wife & I chose a house with a porch on a quiet, tree-lined street. There were plenty of birds - humming birds & mating pairs of cardinals among them. I would spend hours in the afternoons admiring them, even enjoying the frequent visits of hummingbirds to a feeder I put up. But in the last 3 months I have seen perhaps fewer than 10 birds when I would have expected to see many dozens.

This afternoon, over lunch, I saw one bird in an hour: a turkey buzzard, a large, hardy carrion scavenger. But the smaller birds are gone. As are the butterflies after I spent several hundred dollars to plant a butterfly garden off the end of the porch.

If the people in charge don't recognize the fact that we're at or beyond the tipping point in our ecosystem, we face an unpromising future. Thanks to Exxon-Mobil, Shell, BP & the the coal burning power industry & the idiots who are running this country.

So its not the people who are demanding more and more energy who are to blame. It's the people providing that energy.

Sorry but I have to disagree.

 

[Napoleon]

Yikes. This again. I think the main thing is there’s a huge leap of logic here that doesn’t make sense and is actually quite humorous. They’re basing this conclusion on the appearance of “blobs” on weather station radars over the last 50 years. How do they know it’s not just reflective of improvement in the technology or even a change in migratory patterns?

They don’t because it was never explored. Instead the scientist summarily declares that birds aren’t moving in the numbers and exactly when and where this person thinks they should be based on the rather dodgy radar imaging technology of the 1960s so they must be dead!

 

[RAMOSS]

Silent Skies: Billions of North American Birds Have Vanished - Scientific American

Though waterfowl and raptor populations have made recoveries, bird populations have declined since 1970 across nearly all habitats

More than half a century ago, conservationist Rachel Carson sounded an alarm about human impacts on the natural world with her book Silent Spring. Its title alluded to the loss of twittering birds from natural habitats because of indiscriminate pesticide use, and the treatise spawned the modern conservation movement. But new research published Thursday in Science shows bird populations have continued to plummet in the past five decades, dropping by nearly three billion across North America—an overall decline of 29 percent from 1970.

Ken Rosenberg, the study’s lead author and a senior scientist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the nonprofit American Bird Conservancy, says the magnitude of the decline could significantly affect the continent’s food webs and ecosystems. “We’re talking about pest control, we’re talking about pollination [and] seed dispersal,” he says, referring to the roles birds play in ecosystems. Because it is relatively easy to monitor birds, he adds, their presence or absence in a habitat can be a useful indicator of other environmental trends. Based on the paper’s results, he says, “we can be pretty sure that other parts of the ecosystem are also in decline and degradation.”
====================================================
When I moved to suburban Phila 5 years ago my wife & I chose a house with a porch on a quiet, tree-lined street. There were plenty of birds - humming birds & mating pairs of cardinals among them. I would spend hours in the afternoons admiring them, even enjoying the frequent visits of hummingbirds to a feeder I put up. But in the last 3 months I have seen perhaps fewer than 10 birds when I would have expected to see many dozens.

This afternoon, over lunch, I saw one bird in an hour: a turkey buzzard, a large, hardy carrion scavenger. But the smaller birds are gone. As are the butterflies after I spent several hundred dollars to plant a butterfly garden off the end of the porch.

If the people in charge don't recognize the fact that we're at or beyond the tipping point in our ecosystem, we face an unpromising future. Thanks to Exxon-Mobil, Shell, BP & the the coal burning power industry & the idiots who are running this country.

There is also the fact that the pesticides that are being used today are 14 times more potent and toxic than were being used 20 years ago. We can blame monstaro about that.

 

[Rogue Valley]

A definite decrease in bird activity where I live.

Bees are also disappearing in many global locations.

 

[joko104]

If the people in charge don't recognize the fact that we're at or beyond the tipping point in our ecosystem, we face an unpromising future. Thanks to Exxon-Mobil, Shell, BP & the the coal burning power industry & the idiots who are running this country.

What ignorant analysis. I've started threads on this topic before, pointing to the real cause - not the Democratic Party's purely hypocritical hate-mongering on the energy industry they so love to use themselves. We all should be environmentalists like Gore and DeCaprio - living in 25,000 sq ft mansions, flying in private jets and have 200 foot mega yachts that burn 5 gallons of diesel fuel per mile - plus of course at least half a dozen servants. This is who the Democratic Party REALLY supports - and who their leaders are. Rich people who fly in private jets, living in mansions and have servants - while demanding we walk and wear winter coats inside to not use heat in apartments and tiny frame houses.

Cats, both feral and pets people let roam, are slaughtering birds and small mammals by the billions. To city people, "nature" is cats and dogs, so saving nature is saving feral and stray cats. Domesticated cats are an invasive species to the United States. Nature evolved without the natural defenses to domesticated cats part of the evolution.

We feed many animals every day - MANY - including birds, both ordinary and endangered. Every day we also see the remains of birds killed by cats. Cats are merciless killers and kill out of instinct for the sake of killing. Not ONE was ever killed by "Exxon-Mobil, Shell, BP & the the coal burning power industry" like the OPer claims.

A few weeks ago I was sitting outside at night and heard a very rare sound - the chirping of a flying squirrel. The are extremely rare here, very endangered and are quite same. I used a thermal scope to spot it, about 10 feet up and 8 feet out on a branch of an oak tree where we feed squirrels and birds. Apparently it would come down at night for left overs. While sitting there, an orange abandoned cat charged out of the dark, up the tree like a flash, knocked the little flying squirrel out of the tree - and then jumping down on it. Then just looked at it. I rush over, but it was too late.

I have not heard the peeping of a flying squirrel since, and I sit outside almost every night.

Feral cats are desperate for food and will kill anything they can - anything. One feral cat will kill thousands of creatures, with the cat ultimately dying young of diseases, worms, starvation or killed otherwise - but not until kittens are born into the same life cycle. People who let their pet cats roam will kill for the joy of killing. It's what domestic cats were breed specifically to do - kill small animals to protect grain storage and animals that eat crops, plus kill all other things that move in their instinct to kill - hoping this then includes mice and rats.

Personally, I think feral cats should be shot or trapped and euthanized, just like other invasive species should be. Eliminating one feral cat will save the lives of a thousand birds and small mammals. Invasive species are a massive problem in Florida and are destroying entire eco-systems, most notable are the snakes, this also beginning with imported pet snakes. I've posted the stats before of how many BILLIONS and BILLIONS of birds and mammals in the USA are killed by domesticated cats every year.

Contrary to the zombie-like required progressive-Democratic purely hypocritical hatred of the energy industry stupidly spewed out in the OP message - someone who's life benefits from the energy industry he uses far more than is necessary for survival - it is cats and other invasive species that is devastating our native species, particularly birds and small mammals.

 

[joko104]

There is also the fact that the pesticides that are being used today are 14 times more potent and toxic than were being used 20 years ago. We can blame monstaro about that.

Pesticides kill the food source of birds - insects. They also have devastated bee populations so massively that many regions now have to rely upon renting mobile bee colonies to pollinate their crops. We plant many plants specifically for bees and we do not use pesticides of any kind.

 

[Drawdown]

Silent Skies: Billions of North American Birds Have Vanished - Scientific American

Though waterfowl and raptor populations have made recoveries, bird populations have declined since 1970 across nearly all habitats

More than half a century ago, conservationist Rachel Carson sounded an alarm about human impacts on the natural world with her book Silent Spring. Its title alluded to the loss of twittering birds from natural habitats because of indiscriminate pesticide use, and the treatise spawned the modern conservation movement. But new research published Thursday in Science shows bird populations have continued to plummet in the past five decades, dropping by nearly three billion across North America—an overall decline of 29 percent from 1970.

Ken Rosenberg, the study’s lead author and a senior scientist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the nonprofit American Bird Conservancy, says the magnitude of the decline could significantly affect the continent’s food webs and ecosystems. “We’re talking about pest control, we’re talking about pollination [and] seed dispersal,” he says, referring to the roles birds play in ecosystems. Because it is relatively easy to monitor birds, he adds, their presence or absence in a habitat can be a useful indicator of other environmental trends. Based on the paper’s results, he says, “we can be pretty sure that other parts of the ecosystem are also in decline and degradation.”
====================================================
When I moved to suburban Phila 5 years ago my wife & I chose a house with a porch on a quiet, tree-lined street. There were plenty of birds - humming birds & mating pairs of cardinals among them. I would spend hours in the afternoons admiring them, even enjoying the frequent visits of hummingbirds to a feeder I put up. But in the last 3 months I have seen perhaps fewer than 10 birds when I would have expected to see many dozens.

This afternoon, over lunch, I saw one bird in an hour: a turkey buzzard, a large, hardy carrion scavenger. But the smaller birds are gone. As are the butterflies after I spent several hundred dollars to plant a butterfly garden off the end of the porch.

If the people in charge don't recognize the fact that we're at or beyond the tipping point in our ecosystem, we face an unpromising future. Thanks to Exxon-Mobil, Shell, BP & the the coal burning power industry & the idiots who are running this country.

I have plethora of birds. Not unusual for me to get 20+ turkey buzzards at a time. They like to land in my back field when it is bad weather. Putting out seed feeders helps with the cardinals. They and woodpeckers are more frequent here in winter than summer, especially with feeders out. Not saying the bird issue isn't a problem, but habitat/food source is a big thing as far as spotting them. I have been actively trying to integrate more habitat, bird or otherwise, into my property. Habitat loss is as much to do with your day to day activities as it does Exxon.

Anyway, I just harvested a bunch of zennia and Mexican sunflowers. They are still drying so I haven't sorted the seeds out yet My orange milkweed pods are mostly popped but I could salvage a few by banding the remaining pods if you want some free seeds for next year. I just let them self-seed since they are a bit of a mess with the fibrous material to help them float away in the breeze. Anyway, no big thing either way. All can be bought fairly cheap. You would just need to DM me an address before spring (The milkweed seeds need a few months in the cold to germinate but you can emulate in fridge) if you wanted any of mine.