Gregory's Server@StrangeNoises @Sheril @lisamelton Ornithologists agree. US has lost 3 billion birds in the last half century. Cornell University says that our bird population has fallen by 30% since 1970.
Cats and tall buildings and windmills have played a part, but ecological changes are the biggest culprit.
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Top-level
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 @oclsc @Barbramon1 @Sheril @lisamelton they can't both be right can they? I suspect the latter is a vast underestimate, but i also look askance at the former, frankly. Here in the UK naturalists are talking about many species having lost more like 90% (ninety percent) of their numbers over a few decades. And they squarely blame intensive farming, and the other thing we don't talk enough about, the absolute insect apocalypse that's going on. @oclsc @Barbramon1 @Sheril @lisamelton i mean, we tend to notice the loss of insect life only in positive terms; how our cars aren't plastered with their bodies along the front after a long journey, fewer flies invading the house this summer, that sort of thing. But it's a vast disaster, and the birds are - very nearly literally - the canaries in that coalmine. @oclsc @Barbramon1 @Sheril @lisamelton also to be remembered: Shifting Baseline Syndrome: Every generation (in the last century or two) has witnessed a decline, but we think of how nature was when we were growing up to be normal, and the written accounts of its huge, vast, abundance say a couple of hundred years ago barely seem credible. @oclsc @Barbramon1 @Sheril @lisamelton cats hunting birds in suburban gardens would be a rounding error if it wasn't for the wider environmental holocaust going on. they can be killing that many more birds than windfarms and still be a scapegoat to distract you from the real problem. |
@Barbramon1 @StrangeNoises @Sheril @lisamelton
Top of this thread says cats kill 2.4 billion birds a year.
Your post says we've lost 3 billion in 50 years.
This seems inconsistent. Which is true?