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3 Billion Birds Have Vanished from North America


lemonlime

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 9/22/2019 at 10:10 PM, Ted Dantzler said:

"Domesticated" cats have been slaying birds for thousands of years. I'm guessing the real reason for the reduction is pesticides/loss of habitat.

In fact I'm going to wager there were more cats running around killing freely 50 years ago than there are now. We have a farm on the high plains and there are always around 10 barn cats that hang around the place, with the decrease in the number of individual farms over the last 50 years I'm guessing the killer farm cat population has decreased significantly. 

I agree. Habitat loss or reduction in food sources are almost always more of an issue than predation or over hunting. Directly or indirectly. There has been a reduction of insects due in large part to a reduction of flowering plants because of cultivation of billions of acres of corn, soybeans, etc. Grasslands - as opposed to crop lands - are a major habitat for many bird species, and I don’t imagine most human or livestock crops are a major source of seed for those birds not accustomed to feeding on insects. 

Edited by ImissWallyPryor
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If humans can hunt critters to extinction and near extinction it wouldn't surprise me a bit if we inadvertently created a scenario where one of our parasitic but predatory pals, the cat, was able to do major and similar damage to another co-inhabitant, the birds.

I prefer to believe that this is the larger contributor to the bird loss because if it IS due to lack of food then we're all going to have to suffer for years to come with the "feed the birds", "10 million starving birds in America" talk. And those people are going to just be insufferable.

 

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10 hours ago, ImissWallyPryor said:

I agree. Habitat loss or reduction in food sources are almost always more of an issue than predation or over hunting. Directly or indirectly. There has been a reduction of insects due in large part to a reduction of flowering plants because of cultivation of billions of acres of corn, soybeans, etc. Grasslands - as opposed to crop lands - are a major habitat for many bird species, and I don’t imagine most human or livestock crops are a major source of seed for those birds not accustomed to feeding on insects. 

Add the chemical soups being layed down on millions of lawns, and all the golf courses around the country.

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