Guest Essay by Kip Hansen
Science is a wonderful thing. As time moves on, in a single direction, Science, as an endeavor, corrects past misunderstandings. Unfortunately, corrections seldom hit the headlines. Rather, corrections slowly backfill our store of knowledge eventually coming to the fore, at first in odd places, and finally become generally accepted.
Last October I wrote an essay here entitled “About those claims of declining bird populations due to ‘climate change’“ . The popular press and environmental activists were making wild claims about declines of bird populations over time. The bottom line of the essay was that changing land use, and the persistent drought in the southwest, was generally responsible.
(Well, that and free-roaming domestic cats who wreak havoc on ground- and low-nesting birds in urban and suburban areas.)
My sons are hunters in the area known as Upstate New York – generally, any part of New York state north of the NY/NJ megalopolis. When I visit in the summer, I get a hunting license so I can tag along with them while they walk the wild woods of the Catskills. Getting a hunting license means I also get a copy of the current year’s “New York: Hunting and Trapping Official Guide to Laws and Regulations”. In this years edition, we find on page 74 an article titled “The Young Forest Initiative”.
(Yes, I know, I am supposed to tell you about the birds…I’m getting there.)
The Young Forest Initiative is designed to handle a particular environmental problem in New York State: the lack of forest clearcutting has resulted in a serious decline of some species of birds and small mammals that require young forests – sometimes called transitional forests. The article leads with:
“DEC’s [Department of Environmental Conservation] Division of Fish, Wildlife and Marine Resources (DFWMR) recently launched the Young Forest Initiative to considerably increase habitat management on Wildlife Management Areas (WMA) for wildlife that need young forests. Important game species like American woodcock, ruffed grouse, and snowshoe hare all rely on this disturbance-dependent habitat, as do many at-risk species such as New England cottontail, golden-winged warbler, and many charismatic and well-known songbirds such as brown thrasher and eastern (“rufous-sided”) towhee. Population declines of these species are attributed to a lack of habitat that they require for foraging, cover, nesting and raising young. To address this issue, the goal of the YF Initiative is to create, restore and maintain habitat on WMAs so that 10% of the forested area can be considered young forest.”
What has caused this loss of habitat?
“Historically, natural disturbances such as fire, flooding, insect outbreaks, or environmental engineering by beavers, as well as human-caused events like logging and farmland abandonment, created young forests. Decades of suppression of these natural processes and changes in human land use have resulted in a landscape that is largely mature forest.”
To correct this lack of young forest, the DEC says:
“ Today, active land management is required to maintain young forests throughout New York’s landscape. DFWMR is working with the Division of Lands and Forests to ensure that there is ample habitat for young forest-dependent species. Forest regeneration cuts — such as clearcuts, shelterwood cuts, and seed tree cuts, as well as salvage operations following natural disturbance — are one of the tools that land managers use to create a diversity of habitats and forest age classes.”
The bottom line is that the shift away from clearcutting to harvest timber and create pastureland and farm fields, along with suppression for forest fires and, in many areas, removal of “pest beavers” to prevent their dam building which floods the property of rural homeowners, as happens in my area of the Catskills, has resulted in the seemingly good situation of New York state having “mostly mature forests”. However, a homogenized environment is not what wildlife needs. It needs all kinds of habitat niches – including clearcut and burned over areas, beaver-dam created meadows as well as mown hay fields and highway roadsides and fence line hedges.
Here in New York State we find the following situation: “New York state is 63 percent forested — forests cover 18.9 million acres of our 30 million total acres. Much of this land is privately owned and managed for wood or pulp. Most of the land owned by the state is forested.” Of that almost 19 million acres, only 350,000 acres are considered “old growth” (containing a natural succession of trees, oldest being 180 to 200 years old). For us here in New York, that means that the clearcutting of the 1800’s and 1900’s removed most of those 19 million acres of trees. In my area of the Catskills, forests were removed for building materials, both local and to build New York City, to access bluestone deposits (made into sidewalks and curbing for NY City), burned for charcoal, and to create endless, almost continguous, pastureland for sheep and cattle. In fact, in my particular area near the Catskill Park, one finds nearly all the woods are crisscrossed with old stone fences that once separated fields and pastures and whole woodsy neighborhoods are built on tailing piles from old bluestone quarries.
All that change – from mature forest clearcut to make to pastureland, later abandoned back to young forest and, in many areas now, back to mature mixed hardwood/softwood forest – produced magnificently varied habitats for wildlife here. As I highlighted in last October’s essay, the recent declines in some species – remember, most species are increasing – are due to land use changes such as the abandonment of marginal farmland and pastureland – but another change has been in the slowdown – almost a complete stoppage – of the clearcutting forested areas.
Now with the Young Forest Initiative, New York’s DEC is initiating clearcutting five and ten acre plots to restore the natural balance to the environment, making living and breeding spaces for the wildlife that needs transitional and young forest habitats to be successful. Their goal is to have 10% of their managed forests in the process of transitioning from clearcut to young forest to mature forest, all at varying stages over time.
The Bottom Line:
The current view of environmentalists seems to be that change itself is bad, that it is our duty to preserve things the way they are today (or return them to the way they were “when I was young”, or “in my grandfather’s day”). This view slops over into the reports of such groups as the Audubon Society which cries disaster when bird populations are found to be changing — decreasing in some areas – when in fact, bird populations are doing what they always do, they change in step with the changes of their environments.
New York state’s Department of Environmental Conservation has a better idea – stop preventing change, initiate change to improve the environment for native species. Rather than decry clearcutting and the harvest of trees, step up clearcutting, it is not destruction but creation, to make room for species that need those re-growing young forests to prosper.
How cheering to find common sense and applied science overruling the madness of “Stop Everything” we hear so often from the overwrought but under-thinking.
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Author’s Comment Policy: This essay is not about Global Warming, Global Cooling, Carbon oxides, or Climate (changing or not). I am not generally qualified to respond to questions about those subjects and won’t do so.
I will be happy to answer your questions about the essay above or the original essay last October. I like birds.
Anyone foolish enough to take the bait to talk about my opinions on free-roaming domestic cats and their effect on bird and small mammal populations should be prepared to suffer the consequences (chuckle…)
I look forward to reading your comments shared here.
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This is time of the year when migrating birds in the N. Hemisphere are on their way south. It is thought that some species use the Earth’s magnetic field for their navigation. If so, you may find some of them straying a way out of their normal route. Reason for this is that in the last two days the Earth has been hit by series of major or severe geomagnetic storms
http://www.geomag.bgs.ac.uk/images/aphisto.png
Rapid deviation in the declination of degree or two on each side could be critical, so don’t shoot.
http://flux.phys.uit.no/Last24/Last24_tro2a.gif
You also may notice the strong (800nT) impact on the Z component amounting to 1.4% with disturbance of about 2h;in comparison, just before Japan’s mega quake (11 March 2011) the excursion peaked at 700nT but disturbance lasted about 10h.
how does this compares to the recent months ?
http://space-env.esa.int/Data_Plots/noaa/ap_plot.gif
Do you have the chart from the period just before and after the megaquake?
Yes, for both Japan and New Zeeland (3 weeks earlier) here
See also http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/10/sol-is-finally-waking-up/#comment-617659
Larry, I agree with you… there are some areas that have feral cats, but also large areas with few or none.
These studies being referred to assume a feral cat population on the order of magnitude of the number of people in the country.
I think this is clearly ridiculous.
Above graph is in real time.
fixed one for the day in question
http://flux.phys.uit.no/cgi-bin/plotgeodata.cgi?Comps=dhz&tint=1day&block=0&day=7&mnt=10&year=2015&site=tro2a
When I were a lad living in the country….(UK 1950s-1960s), in early summer, the dawn chorus of songbirds would wake me at about 5 am. Then, raptors and nest raiders were ruthlessly persecuted.
Now, all birds are protected. Hawks and Jays and Magpies (etc. etc), once a rare sight, are now common. Songbirds, once common are becoming rare.
How many Thrushes, Blackbirds and Sparrows does it take to raise a nest of Sparrowhawks?
Try here: http://www.songbird-survival.org.uk/the_problem.html
Back then a bounty used to be paid for tails of the invasive pest (and nest raider) the grey squirrel.
we just had dept of sparks n parks set supposedly controlled burns in Vic on a hot windy spell
result?
2 homes at least gone plus sheds probably stock and a shitload of wildlife
allowing in bush grazing and some clearing for open areas to help stop fires getting so large n jumping piddling 12ft firebreaks might be smart?
nah
greentards reckon their ways best.
I live in a well treed urban area. My buddy lives in a forest by a lake. I was always curious about why there seemed to be many more birds in the my back yard than out in the forest. Now I know. Thanks Kip.
Reply to commieBob ==> You’re welcome.
commieBob:
Your buddy could install a purple martin house.
Martins rarely land on the ground, they love mosquitos and insects and they prefer to live near water.
So the first uS energy crisis was when densely inhabited areas began to run out of wood to heat houses and buildings. Like ice land and Europe the search for woo denuded the countryside.Whale oil became scarce too. Substituting coal for wood took some of the pressure off wood as a source of heat and forests could recover. 1 chord per year per acre. There was a transition from coal to oil for heating after WWII. Now 87% of homes in Maine are heated with fossil fuel. The forests are recovering. The same percentage of homes in Canada are heated with Hydro. the result is the same no pressure to cut for heat and the forest returns. Now farmers fight back the forest to keep their fields open where before that effort was directly useful and any-twig collected ment warmth. Just thinkin’
Declining birds populations are more the sad outcome of these many silly windmills than the purported climate change.
Indeed, that is the real bird population/Climate Change link – man’s misguided attempts at combatting an over-hyped “problem” via putting up numerous bird choppers across the country side.
I think it is reasonable to say that the vast majority of the landscape of the UK is the result of man. If left to its own devices, most areas would be forest or swamp, scrub up to the snowline and that’s it. Man’s farming activities has produced a varied landscape with a huge variety of species. Chalk downland is preserved by grazing and removal of any bushes that escape them for example. Coppicing of woods for various uses creates a turnover of the habitat. Reed beds were preserved by cutting for thatching etc, this stopped them from choking with vegetation and gradually evolving into land. The greens policies would destroy lots of this.
From Bishop Hill.
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2015/10/6/wildlife-thriving-in-chernobyl.html
Native Americans used fire to improve hunting habitat long before Europeans arrived. A good example is the Eastern Grouse. Grouse habitat relies on succession. I have not seen a Grouse in the Pinelands in New Jersey in perhaps 30 years. Everything is overgrown. I found an area in north central Pennsylvania that had been clear cut some years ago. I carried a hand gun for the Grouse that lived in the new growth on my way to the mature areas where the turkey would feed. Even at that time, I considered the area rare as it had the best of two habitats.
You post represents multiple decades of the vilification of cattle owners, shepherds, and loggers. These hard working folks put a roof over our heads, meat on the table, and clothes on our backs while continuing nature’s desire to renew and rebuild flora and fauna in a continuing cycle of life. I was born from these hard working folks and will forever announce and defend their contributions to the health of planet Earth.
Finger typo. Your, not you. Or it could be an early morning not enough coffee brain fart.
In my case, spilled beverages cause sticky keys.
Reply to Pamela ==> Not quite sure what in the essay might have provoked such a response — there is certainly no intentional (or accidental, as far as I can see) vilification of anyone. I would be glad to modify the text if you can point out any objectionable passages.
The history of New York state, and its environments, is just that, history. The central Hudson Valley and the Catskills, and later, the Adirondacks and the Mohawk Valley, were the bread basket for the thriving nascent megalopolis of New York City. It is simply fact that forests were cleared for pastureland (I am living this summer on just such a spot) and burned for charcoal — that was the need, and this area supplied it. My particular area (and Vermont, for granite) supplied much of the stone from which New York city is built — and before that, it provided the hardwoods.
Once the Erie Canal was built, and later the railroads, these needs were supplied by areas being pioneered further west, and the marginal lands in this area were allowed to revert to forest.
This historical process is rather the point and precedes the current effort to reproduce some of that change.
I felt slightly vilified Kip.
But I forgive you.
My take on it is we will have to agree to disagree…i would not presume to imply that my opinion should dictate your personal choices.
Reply to menicholas ==> Vilify means “to say or write very harsh and critical things about (someone or something)”, not just, for instance, insulted.
I did warn everyone, at the end of my essay: “Anyone foolish enough to take the bait to talk about my opinions on free-roaming domestic cats and their effect on bird and small mammal populations should be prepared to suffer the consequences (chuckle…)”
I can take the heat of the kitchen without getting upset about it. Just offering my view, and I accept yours.
I try to save my insults for the general case, and mostly for warmistas.
And that mostly because I think they are liars, not just because I disagree with them.
I do not think disagreeing is reason enough to insult someone.
As to vilification, you did make it rather plain that you think people who let cats outside and are not locked somehow into a yard, are responsible for billions of bird and mammal deaths, and are unfit to be pet owners…unless you meant only me.
Pam, perhaps I should send you some Kenya AA so you can read my post again with a buzz. I have not vilified any person or group. Many think that old growth is best for all wild animals. I believe that you hunt and know better. Suppression of all wild fires have sure worked well out for the west hasn’t it? New growth attracts game animals, no matter whether forest or field. Armchair conservationist are no different than the warmest. Montana has a program that pays farmers to increase bird habitat. The bad news is that the fund is running low on funds and some land will return back to intensive farming resulting in some loss of great bird habitat. When I was much younger I lived in Princeton and went to the high school there. The farm boys from Princeton Junction went to the same school. We had wild pheasants. That area is now all $700-900,000 houses with taxes $18-20,000 per year. I also duck hunted the Mill Pond that Orson Wells described in “War of the Worlds”. What few farms are left have few hedge rows. Your chances of finding a diamond are greater than find a wild pheasant. This is not to say conditions were ever close the the Yakima Valley. I have nothing but admiration and respect for the people you think I vilify. The people in those areas today are the backbone of this country and still possess common sense with the possible exception of most of California, and parts of Oregon and Washington. The engineer in me makes me accept change even if I don’t like it. Change is reality. After all, when things stop changing, it means you are dead. I’m sure you could guess my thoughts on the Climate Change Industry. You do have to hand it to them. Now they have a real Pope.
Pam, my bad. I thought your post was directed to me. Sorry.
Ric
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
‘Twas ever thus.
As a bird “liker” (I wouldn’t say I love them, but I do enjoy having them around), I’ve got to share my bird population story.
Two years ago, my wife and I moved to a new area of the country. We bought a house with a large, poorly looked after yard. Due to various utility and drainage easements (we live adjacent to a retention pond), a couple thousand square feet of property were outside of the existing fence, and the area outside the fence looked like it hadn’t been mowed in several years (there was various small woody plants and other weeds up to 6 ft tall). We moved right before winter, and enjoyed watching all the birds, especially the blue jays and cardinals that would regularly visit us. The following summer, we put a lot of work into cleaning up the yard to make it look nice, including the area outside the fence.
As winter #2 in the new house progressed, my wife commented on how many fewer birds there were than the previous winter. It wasn’t until a few weeks after her comment that I finally realized why: I had destroyed the area they had been using for food and shelter. We now have a back yard feeder, and as long as we keep the squirrels away, the bird population is as high as ever.
I understand as my story is just the opposite. Living in SW Florida if is difficult to have a nice lawn without a sprinkler system and constant care. I do not have a sprinkler system and got tired of fighting nature. I tore out all the grass and replaced the entire property with native plants and flowers and cypress mulch. No more wasted water, no more constant care with chemicals to control weeds and bugs. Life is much easier now and less expensive. An unexpected benefit is now I have lots of birds, butterflies, snakes (the good ones, Southern Racers) and even rabbits that visit daily. So as the article acknowledges, not all change is bad, some is very beneficial and natural processes if left alone will usually tend to take care of themselves for the good of nature.
More years ago than I’d like to admit I was a Boy Scout. We went on 2 week camping trip to Maine. Hiking through a gorgeous forest, we suddenly came across a clear cut area. It was filled with Blackberry bushes at least 3 yards tall. They would have been taller but they were bent over from the weight of all the berries. Scattered throughout were bears harvesting the abundance. They weren’t the least bit interested in us.
Our guide explained that, in Maine, they sold logging plots about 500 yards wide and about 20 miles long so that the logging companies were cutting fire breaks into the forest. Sounds like a “win-win” to me.
Here’s a bird that fears no predator, The mythical Piasa Bird
http://www.riverbills.com/pic_of_the_day/032505_piasa_bird.JPG
Wonder what that would do to a windmill…
(painted by my good friend, Dave Stevens ‘The Rice Painter’.)
http://ricepainter.com/index2.html
His work is amazing.
What is really quite striking from the numbers included here is the scale of re-forestation in New York – something which has been mirrored all over North America. By the end of the 19th century, the Eastern part of the northern US was almost all pasture/agriculture and now it has mostly returned to forest (as the mid-west took up the reigns of food production). 19m hectares in NY alone – that is a lot of CO2 fixation….
And now there are “conservation” efforts to make sure some of the forests are clear cut regularly in order to “maintain” certain species population. But prior to the influx of European settlers, the entire area would have been old-growth (beavers alone can’t clear enough land to make a difference) so these very species we are trying to encourage are actually only there because of human intervention! If this kind of change were only just being done now, the “conservationists” would be up in arms that we are removing the habitat of species that need old growth forests and allowing in the influx of “invasive species” which do better in disturbed habitats.
This just goes to show how ephemeral our human short-term ideas of lanscape really are. In the UK, conservation efforts are focussed on preserving pasture-land habitats – which again never existed until the old-growth oak forests were cut down in the 16/17/18 centuries. Just who gets to decide what the “right” habitat is which should be conserved?
Rob:
The East coast Native Americans did clear trees in places. Their movable villages would be moved occasionally and the old area allowed to refresh itself. They also moved their villages to and from summer/winter areas.
Native Americans cleared areas for gardens often planting the ‘three sisters’; corn, beans and squash.
So while large tracts of land were maintained old forest, there were many clearings, meadows and brushy areas too. Native Americans often used fires to control forest and clear growth areas.
In the Midwest, Native Americans burned the grass to keep trees from turning the grasslands into forest. While this was just an expansion of already existing natural processes it was also used to capture food, rabbits and birds for the winter.
Eastern American forests were primarily, (up to three fourths), American chestnut trees with the remaining trees being a mix of mostly hardwoods, oak, cherry, maple and hickory.
When the Europeans arrived, the primary wildlife for dinner were turkeys and squirrels. The term ‘barking a squirrel’ became synonymous with accurate shooting, but came from the practice of shooting the branch just under the squirrel and stunning the squirrel.
Shooting a squirrel with a 36 to 76 caliber rifle is decidedly overkill and destroys meat. Plus a squirrel killed while clutching a tree often will not fall making a hungry hunter hungrier while climbing to fetch their squirrel. But a stunned squirrel does not clutch the bark and falls from the tree. Barking a squirrel provided more and better quality meat.
Deer were not uncommon, but they were not as common as today. Deer survive in a mature forest, but they thrive in mixed forest.
There was also an eastern cousin, believed, of the bison, called the woods bison.
Remember, many of the immigrating Europeans nearly starved while getting used to the differences.
As Kip pointed out, farms were the first reason for clearing of forest. As such, much less desirable land stayed forested so that lumberjacks were still working Eastern woods into the 1930s.
During WWII, Eastern mountain forests provided red spruce for planes. Rumor has it that the ‘Spruce Goose’ utilized quite a lot of red spruce in Howard Hughes’s plane.
Many areas in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine stayed forested till after WWII and helped support the housing boom after the soldiers returned.
Having grown up in PA, I can tell you that the state is know to have (As of when i last lived there, about 15 years ago) a huge problem in that there are few young forests. There is no logging there, not in my lifetime, which is since 1961.
I have read accounts that confirm what was alluded to in this article…that after the civil war, PA was clear cut from East to West during reconstruction. The woodsmen that worked at the front of the Union army as they pursued their foes through the south became incredibly efficient at clearing out a path wide enough for the army to pass, used the cut wood to build corduroy roads and bridges for the following army and the equipment they brought along with them. They cleared this path as fast as the army could march. These same people, returning home after the war, are the ones employed to cut the trees. I grew up in one of the homes built during these years…a house built in 1876 in Center City Philadelphia…and I can tell you it was a lot of very nice wood used.
Anyway, the accounts of the clear cutting are well documented, so there was almost no virgin old growth forest left after that in Pennsylvania.
Big Tree People Parks with almost no wildlife. That’s what the environmentalists want.
“However, a homogenized environment is not what wildlife needs. It needs all kinds of habitat niches – including clearcut and burned over areas, beaver-dam created meadows as well as mown hay fields and highway roadsides and fence line hedges.”
I recently read an article stating that comparing city, suburbs, and country, the largest variety of birds is in the suburbs. That ties in with your remarks- both city and country are more homogeneous than suburbs, with varying amounts of trees, shurbs, gardens, etc in each lot.
Thanks for `broaching this subject.
Interestingly, this issue–bird population data–overlaps with another issue of great import: Data manipulation.
The Audobon Society sponsors one of the oldest “citizen science” projects: the Christmas Bird Count. Every year, within two weeks of Christmas, citizen scientists hit the field and collect data–counting and recording every bird they see in their designated area.
” The National Audubon Society Christmas Bird Count (CBC) is an early-winter survey of birds. Although counts occur in Central and South America, most CBCs occur in North America. The sample area for a count is a circle that is 15 miles in diameter, and varying numbers of volunteers count all birds they see in the circle during a single day, which is within 2 weeks of 25 December. (Butcher 1990)
“Although this analysis only considers the interval 1959 – 1988, the CBC was begun in 1900. The number of circles and participants has changed dramatically since the early years. Butcher (1990) notes that 1,508 circles were surveyed in 1986-1987. Unfortunately, the number of birds counted is a function of effort, and analysis of change over time must incorporate some effort adjustment (Butcher and McCulloch 1990). In this analysis, we standardized the counts to birds/100 party hours, but we acknowledge that more research is needed into methods of adjusting counts…”
So, just like North American temperature observations, there is a solid data base of bird count observations, going back to 1900.
Note the careful attention to data quality: http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/bbs/introcbc.html
Even with the clear issues with data quality (differences each year in: number of people in observation team, timing, day, weather, etc) there are apparently no massive “homogenization” or meddling with the raw data.
It is all available online.
http://netapp.audubon.org/CBCObservation/Historical/ResultsByCount.aspx
They did create a solution to the data issues: they created a new data point: Number of birds per party hours. This provides a metric that takes into account some of the variables.
But the raw data is there for posterity. At least, as of now. It generally tells the story of rising bird populations.
So the cats are strengthening the herd, might we conclude, by culling out the weak, stupid, old, sick, unfit, and slow/slow-witted?
We have known that bird populations respond to landscape level habitat change for decades. How does that change the conclusion that climate change will cause major changes to bird distribution and abundance?
Reply to Luke ==> “How does that change the conclusion that climate change will cause major changes to bird distribution and abundance?”
Well, Luke, it doesn’t at all change that conclusion, except that there is as yet no particular convincing evidence that “climate change will (or has) cause(d) major changes”. The fact that environments change, particularly human land use changes, means that bird populations and distributions will also change. If there are climatic changes, then there will be environmental changes. In fact, that is the point of both this and the previous essay. As land use changes, as environments change, so do bird populations.
Humans can’t stop, nor did they cause, the repeating historic droughts of the American Southwest and so we should simply be able to accept that there will be some loss of habitat and bird numbers there. Efforts, if conservation groups wish to finance them, can be made to support example populations in limited areas until the drought lifts or simply let Nature have her way.
For most of this country, and Europe, human land use has been by far the biggest factor in environmental change as it effects wildlife — past, present, and we can expect this to remain true for the future.
The point of this essay is the the NY State DEC realized that certain endemic birds and small mammals were suffering serious loss of habitat, thus numbers, due to a change in how we humans interact with the forests, in this case, we have prevented some forest clearing (suppressing fires and beavers, for instance) and slowed down the clear-cutting and wood harvests, thus reducing the number and distribution of Young or Transitional Forest habitat throughout the state. The Young Forest Initiative is their solution, clear-cut up to 10% of the states land holdings, bit by bit, in 5 and 10 acre lots, to create young/transitional forest habitat.
Whether Dutch Elm disease, Chestnut blight, or hurricanes like Hugo, examples abound of the fact that nature is not efficient, and does not preserve the status quo. These trees should always be harvested, and that in a responsible manner, not just left as if they are outdoor furniture.
Leaving these forests in the mature state that concludes the natural succession, from grass lands, to shrubs and pine, to mixed deciduous, and then mature hardwood climax forest is, as the article rightly points out, a wrongheaded and myopic view of proper stewardship of the environment.
I wonder what would have happened if the green movement would have been around twenty thousand years ago, when the two mile high continental glaciers began to melt, and the climate changed in a way that allowed every single creatures and living thing in the northern half of North American to even exist?
I am sure they would have decried the habitat loss of whatever few creatures scraped out a meager living on the slopes of the massive wastelands of the ice sheets.
Would they have insisted policies be put in place to futilely try and prevent North America from becoming ice sheet free?
The only constant is change.
Climate Change = more Wind Mills = more Bird Mortality = Declining Bird Populations. Circular analysis, anybody?
Reply to RockyRoad ==> I’m afraid that that is only trivially true.
Some hard pressed raptor populations, slow breeders, are particularly harmed.
I agree. Bird mortality from wind mills is dwarfed by the effects of windows, power lines and associated power poles, roads and vehicles (almost 100 golden eagles were observed killed along highways near Rock Springs, WY in one winter). Some large raptors with limited distributions that coincide with wind energy farms and low reproductive rate may be negatively affected but the impact on most bird populations will be negligible. I will take limited mortality from wind farms over potentially massive changes due to climate change in a second.
Well, sure, Luke–but the assertion that we’ll see “massive changes due to climate change” is a pie-in-the-sky guess, nothing more, nothing less. Do you have anything besides skewed computer models to support your supposition?
“I will take limited mortality from wind farms over potentially massive changes due to climate change in a second.”
Oh, you will, will you?
Well, I will not take it…I will fight it!
While we still have these birds left to save.
Your BS regarding power lines and roads is pure nonsense and misdirection, almost entirely non-factual.
The evidence for large numbers of birds killed by power lines is far thinner than the exaggerated claims for cats causing massive harm. The problem of a bird’s outstretched wings shorting out the terminal of the separate conductors has been long ago resolved. Small nesting songbirds cause an occasional substation short every now and then, but even these issues are more often caused by squirrels. It rarely happens, as attested by the reliability of our power supply.
Luke, your attitude is the problem.
These bird choppers, if the plans of the greens continue to be put in place, will create an impassable gauntlet for large birds. As it is, the areas in which they exist are a death trap from which few large birds can escape. And when you look at the amount of power thus produced, compared to what is required to achieve the carbon free plans for power generations, it is obvious that a hundred times more of these will need to be erected. It will do little good, and massive harm, even if one were to concede that CO2 is in the slightest way dangerous.
Birds passing them do not even have to be hit by the blades of the windmills…the pressure wave can kill them, or suck them in, once they get within a certain distance.
It is likely that these will cause the absolute extinction of whole classes of birds if they remain and in fact become more widespread.
And by the way, what climate change are you referring to? Please be specific.
What evidence do you have, what can you show, that provides even one tiny speck of evidence that a trace gas will cause even one bird to die due to atmospheric effects?
I challenge you to provide such evidence. Considering your brutal and shameless disregard for the lives of these innocent and majestic creatures, which preceded us by tens of millions of years in their claim to the airspace now occupied by your birdchoppers, you must have strong evidence indeed.
Unless yours is a position borne out of sheer ignorance, and disregard for facts, and indifference to the rules evidence based science and reason.
Don’t forget that large numbers of mosquito-eating bats are getting bumped off as well. So we might see an increase in malaria caused by a counter-productive response to an imagined threat of “climate change.”
Menicholas don’t waste all of our time! Estimates of bird mortality from wind mills is more than three orders of magnitude lower than EACH of the following sources: buildings, powerlines, cats, automobiles, and pesticides. There are many scientific studies that have looked at this one citation is below. Peter Marra is a coauthor on a recent paper in Frontiers in Ecology (behind a pay wall) that shows the same thing (link below the Erickson paper).
http://beta.dialight.com/Assets%5CApplication_Notes%5CSignaling%5CObstruction%20Lighting%20Bird%20Strike%20Study.pdf
http://www.esajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1890/110251
Kip,
My family is from the hills of northwestern Pennsylvania. After my grandparents left the farm a new owner planted fields of pines meant for Christmas Trees. Another place I know well, about 15 miles away, got the same treatment. Maybe half the pines were harvested but many remain, now inter-grown with local species. In the late 40s and 50s many large Chestnut trees were still standing, home for squirrels – Hickory nuts were their food source by then.
Prior to my time, so before the 1940s, there were 2 things (not counting farming) locally that contributed to the cutting of trees. One was leather production (tanning of hides) and the other was providing logs for uses (flat-bottom boats on the Ohio) to the westward migration. Local men would cut trees and with the spring run-off float the trees to Pittsburgh, sell the logs, then walk home – about 80 miles. From my area, the last run of logs was in May, 1915. (http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~pacpiney/index_files/pineydam.htm)
Use the following to search “images”: ~ flat boats migration ohio river ~
Other parts of the eastern forests were cut at other times and for various reasons. Search the link below for the “Great Clearcut” (1890-1930).
http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/toc/14089.html
Reply to John H. ==> Thank you for sharing your family story with us.
So manmade micro environments benefit some species.
What about the big raptors?
Here in North America I sense they are under assault.
Govt sanctioned blind eye by regulators of wind industry.
Just got back from a road trip through Alberta, Saskatchewan, North & South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana, Out on the plains and in the Windfarm free hills we saw lots of Hawks, Owls and a handful of Eagles, came back through Pincher Creek Alberta not even a raven from Waterton Lakes to Fort Macleod.
Now it may have been the time of day, but I was paying attention as this was curiosity of mine.
Now in Cody Wyoming we attended a talk on Raptors at the Museum, great presentation.
I asked the spokesman if these very smart birds could learn to avoid wind turbine sails.
He said possibly but due to the forward and down orientation of a raptors eyes they may never learn what hit them at 200 miles per hour.
Who is gathering this kind of information?
With the environmental organizations mostly done over to the Cult of Calamitous Climate, and openly worshipping these whirling replacements of the Christian crucifix, who is gathering accurate data?
John,
There are people keeping an eye on birds being chopped up by wind turbines:
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2013/04/wind-farms-and-birds
39 million birds a year killed by wind turbines:
http://www.cfact.org/2013/03/18/wind-turbines-kill-up-to-39-million-birds-a-year/
Reply to John R. and Kent ==> Yes, as I have said above, I fear that the wind turbine industry will be very hard on larger raptor populations.
One only hopes that some remedy will be found. It is unlikely that EPA will outlaw wind power….
Bird populations are declining? When’s the decline in bird poop on my car and deck going to decline?
Funny.
Reply to Barbara S. ==> Regardless of total national bird populations, Poop Happens.
I have a Siberian Huskie that kills (and eats) birds at every opportunity. She’s much more successful than any cat I’ve ever known. No ambush, just quick. And I’m not talking about quail or roadrunners that are present here: those she doesn’t have any hoping of catching. Why, I’m not sure- seems the quail would be easy, the roadrunners impossible.
The quail have a dozen or so offspring every Spring and we watch their coveys decline over the weeks following their hatching, but most seen to fall victim to coyote predation. My dear domesticated dog seems to have little interest in them, though she will eat the hindmost if given the opportunity.
Our neighborhood (SW of Tucson in the open desert) has no feral cats, or domesticated ones left outdoors (says everything about their ability as free-range predators), but plenty of coyotes and wild pig-like critters called javelins. They and the dogs don’t give much of a damn about each other; neither seem to want to get into fights over anything. Yeah, the dogs bark and the pigs cower, but not once has that escalated into a fight of any kind.
The sweet (properly fed) Huskie also killed and partially ate a local skunk with no remorse. Conclusion: we as humans are in no position to judge the inclinations of our earthly co-inhabitants because we are totally incapable of discerning their motives about anything at all.
Larry, I agree with you… there are some areas that have feral cats, but also large areas with few or none.
These studies being referred to assume a feral cat population on the order of magnitude of the number of people in the country.
I think this is clearly ridiculous.
Reply to menicholas ==> The studies are NOT about feral cats — they are about free-roaming domestic house-kitties.
Think of your local grocery store — how many shelf-feet are dedicated to cat food? Cat food sales, pet supply sales, humane society intakes, and surveys of pet owners gives us a good idea of the national domestic cat population.
Kip,
Careful: “The studies are NOT about feral cats — they are about free-roaming domestic house-kitties…”
Yes, the studies are about ALL cats–feral and domestic.
http://www.ecology.com/2013/08/27/global-impact-feral-cats/
“Cats kill billions of birds and mammals each year and are the number one cause of death of both, according to the US Fish & Wildlife Service and Nature Communications. While one pet cat may kill one to 34 birds a year, a feral cat will kill as many as 46 birds a year. Over the years, it is known that cats have brought about the extinction of 33 bird species including New Zealand’s Stephens Island Wren.”
Most people are unaware of the massive number of feral cats, and the human support systems that exacerbate the problem.
http://trapneuterreturn.com/
There are huge organizations and numbers of individuals who provide health and legal support to these feral cat populations.
That is not to minimize domestic cats, and their impact on birds. But feral cats are a huge, and growing problem.
Reply to Kent ==> Quite Right, I should have been more careful — the “kitty-cam” studies are not about feral cats.
Loss et al. 2015 not only includes feral cats but estimates: “~69% of this mortality [is] caused by un-owned cats. The predation estimate for un-owned cats was higher primarily due to predation rates by this group averaging three times greater than rates for owned cats”.
The feral cat populations depend very much on location location location — in some areas, as we have seen in comments, feral cats are coyote food, house kitties hiding inside at night. Rural areas with hard winters have very low numbers of truly feral cats — cities, with lots of warm sewers and basements and underpasses, have higher numbers. The temperate states have high populations free living.
Thus, and I repeat just for emphasis, feral cats should be rounded up by animal control officers and either adopted into homes that will confine them to the owners house and/or property, or euthanized as we have done, for the most part, for feral dogs.
Some cats may kill 34 birds, but many more almost never manage to catch one. Some are observers. Some are inept. And they are easily distracted by anything else that moves and is easier to catch.
I can write a whole book about cats I have had and their varied success at hunting. Most house born and raised cats do not ever eat what they catch…except bugs…those they eat fairly often.
They do not know how to eat them, and usually only kill them by being too rough. Once dead, they lose interest and walk away from it…although a few will play with a dead mouse for a few days, tossing it into the air and swatting at it.
The phrase “I hate meeses to pieces” sounds accurate, but a careful examination of cats playing with their catches shows me that, for house cats anyway…they love them rather than hating them.
Love them to death!
I think cats think mice and cute and adorable.
I have had several, including my current primary cat Dewclaw, who brings birds inside without damaging so much as a feather, then releases them so he can chase them around without them being able to escape.
I had one in Altamonte Springs who would catch lizards. He never did more than chase them…after bringing them inside.
When I moved from there, I lifted up a large table to find Jones’ collection of maimed and mummified lizards…he collected them and placed them all in one spot! And it appeared that in seven years he caught several dozen, despite spending all day sitting outside trying to catch them while those lizards crawled around by the hundreds everyday.
I seem to recall learning that when the first Europeans came to North America, what they found was basically an unbroken forest from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Plains, except where Native Americans had carved out their smallish communities.
If true, it may be that there are far more birds, and bird species, than was the case before we got here and “ruined everything”.
“I can write a whole book about cats I have had…”
All of the cat-addict rants about the horrible data in the cat-bird predation research are quite amusing.
What data would be sufficient for cat-addicts to accept the waste and devastation their parasite-hosts wreak on the world?
The current national data is based on sample counts of cat hunting for long periods of time (a year), for population blocks (village, town, neighborhood). Those objectives numbers are then combined with estimates of cat population (based on surveys and counts), to arrive at the estimate of birds killed annually by cats.
Evidently, the only possible data that the cat-addicts would accept is video-tape of each each and every bird killed by a cat.
Until every cat is forced to wear a body cam, that ain’t gonna happen.
So, we have very well-done estimates of birds killed by cats, given in a large range.
Cat-addicts are likely unable to process this, since many of their brains are hosts to the same parasite infecting their feline masters: Toxoplasma gondii or Toxoplasma.
In 2012, research revealed that cat-owners run the risk of constant exposure to the organism. Further research revealed that, when humans are infected with the organism, the parasite, in effect, takes control of the cat-addicts’ brain.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/253802.php
The parasite causes cat-addicts to be more likely to suffer mental illness, including ” schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, and other mental diseases… there is also evidence to suggest infection by the parasite is linked to more extroverted, aggressive and risk-taking behavior.”
So the next time a cat-addict says, “I can write a whole book about cats I have had…” you might want to take that as a warning of potential insanity.
In the meantime, cat-addicts, when your parasite allows you, please let us know when you finish the comprehensive count of every bird killed by a cat in the US this year.
Happy litter box scooping!
BTW, I catch those birds with a swimming pool leaf net and put them back outside.
I have taken and released several snakes, and even a few small rats…although those I took down the block before releasing.
I do not even kill insects in the house, (except the rare roach), preferring to let them back outside. Ditto large spiders.
I can tell you, it is disconcerting to have a large rodent crawl across your foot while you are sitting at a computer desk. That one was courtesy of “Bad Apple” Jones, and luckily it turned out to have been a large mole, or I would have been seriously skeeved out.
“Most people are unaware of the massive number of feral cats, and the human support systems that exacerbate the problem. ”
I for one, am not. My oldest brother has made his job for going on twenty years to are for a colony of feral cats who live behind the Walmart in South Philly (Do not ask me why…I would not do it. But we are part Native American, and I suspect it is because he respects all animal life. I also know a girl who carries around a giant bag of cat food in her truck in Boca, to feed strays she spots). He has enlisted a whole bunch of support, including vets to do the neutering and give the shots, and a bunch of people that assist in adopting out any that are able to tolerate people.
In fact, both Jones and Tallulah (She is the wildlife behaviorist of the house) came from that colony, and turned out to be fine pets. It is suspected that any cats which will let a person get within thirty feet are escaped or lost house cats. A cat which is not handled by people prior to being weaned will never allow itself to be approached by a person, or so it is generally regarded to be the case.
In fact, they obviousness of a congregation of cats that such examples makes clear, speaks to the ludicrousness of there being a hundred ones that no one ever sees for every one in a known colony.
Outside of a human population enter, the land can likely not support more than a few cats per square mile, and only the very toughest can live apart from human support of any kind…they tend to cluster near human dwellings for shelter, and also because that is where there are large amounts of suitable vermin for them to eat. Songbirds are small, once you remove the feathers, and a cat can not survive on a meal or two a week. I know for sure that they catch more large insects than they do anything else.
I work outside, have for decades, and spend time biking and hiking, as well as just sitting and watching, day and night, wildlife and the stars. I my area, I know there are three or four cats in an area of about a square mile. I know because I see them now and then.
There are not hundreds, or even dozens.
But there would have to be two hundred per square mile, in order for the estimate in the article for Lee county to be accurate.
There is just no way. Unless you have more than these articles, you have zero direct evidence for the numbers…they are just made up guesses. And done by people with a clear agenda. This is evident by the language used…cats that people let outside are in great danger!
So are people that get into cars, or cross roads. We would be much safer sitting on a sofa all day long for our whole lives.
The Stephens Island Wren, mercilessly slaughtered by Tibbles the cat:
http://www.nzbirds.com/birds/stephenswren.html
But would the wren have survived if not for Tibbles?
http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/speciesfactsheet.php?id=3993
In just one year, the lighthouse keeper’s cat decimated an entire species (apparently consisting of about 11 remaining individuals)—an astonishing accomplishment!
“Happy litter box scooping!”
So, now we get to the hating heart of the matter. You just dislike cats, and the people that have them.
I for one, let my cats outside where they take care of themselves, and I never see, or smell, their waste products.
Try teaching a dog that trick. (I have tried…they will use a small corner of a plot if reminded often enough, but bury it…nope).
I have never had a cat which was not a result of someone talking me into sheltering a poor little beasty that had no home and would wind up in a shelter and likely euthanized.
You must have a reading comprehension problem…seriously.
The issue is not if there are cats, or if they hunt prey…it is how many are there. You have no evidence to back up your claims, and now resort to ad hominem insults…just like a warmista!
Not only are you deluding yourself that you know something that is not known, you are pusillanimously using your own belief to hate on people who have a different view and only want to share their place and time on earth with another of God’s creations. Pets give us love and companionship…and they are living beings!
You sound like a really awful person, you know that? Sorry to say it, but it is true.
Are you aware of what happens to populations of animals which are removed from the rigors of predation? Nothing good.
We have removed most of the predators of small animals from the ecosystems of the Eastern US. Cats may in fact restore some balance. And in any case, they are only doing what cats have always done, everywhere they have ever existed.
Small animals like rodents and songbirds respond to predation by becoming more fit, and usually the predation only brings the numbers into closer balance with the long term carrying capacity of the biome.
Hope your imaginary army of murderous Fluffys hiding behind every bush does not keep you awake in a cold sweat every single night…just on weekends!
🙂
Get a grip.
Awful is encouraging animal disease-vectors to deposit their infected feces all over neighborhoods full of human families. In saner times, we eradicated disease vectors.
Pointing out the awfulness of disease vectors and their effects on the environment and society is dealing with reality.
Toxoplasmosis is serious. And it can make you insane.
“The demonstration that latent Toxoplasma infections can alter behavior in rodents has led to a reconsideration of this assumption. When infected human adults were compared with uninfected adults on personality questionnaires or on a panel of behavioral tests, several differences were found. Other studies have demonstrated reduced psychomotor performance in affected individuals. Possible mechanisms by which T. gondii may affect human behavior include its effect on dopamine and on testosterone.”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2526142/
“The parasite, which is behind the disease toxoplasmosis, also stimulates the release of dopamine, the neurotransmitter that provides pleasure. While this effect hasn’t been studied in humans infected with T. gondii, the same study hypothesizes that toxoplasmosis might also subtly change a human’s personality so that she develops a liking for cats. It may be one reason people who are fond of felines tend to keep several of them at a time (think: crazy cat lady).”
BTW, as if to punctuate our discussion, Tallulah brought home and killed a small bird in my living room…came home to a mess of feathers and a tiny corpse of what looked to be a baby mockingbird.
Instead of burying or flushing it, i have propped up the corpse in a nearby tree, tied to a string. I have name it, too>
Drum roll please…please pay your respect to little Kentclizbe
🙁
Poor Kentclizbe…we hardly knew ye.
Toxoplasma gondii, the other recurring cat fear news story.
Cats typically get toxoplasmosis from eating infected rodents. Infected cats have infected poop for 1-3 weeks after their initial infection, after which they can only spread the parasite by getting eaten raw by some predator. During that two weeks, the poop doesn’t turn infectious until 1-4 days after defecation, so cleaning a cat box daily eliminates what little risk the infection actually poses.
Uncooked meat and raw fruits and vegetables are the primary source of human infection, with pork, lamb, and venison particularly susceptible. (93% of pigs tested on one Massachusetts farm had been exposed. Did they all get it from cat poop?)
Toxoplasmosis is not fully understood. It is hard to discern in feces because the organism resembles many others that occur naturally. There are supposedly many different varieties of this organism. It does not cause mice to be ATTRACTED to cat urine, it simply stifles the fear mechanism—which could make them more susceptible to getting eaten by any predator. And the behavior change apparently occurs only in the mice that get notably sick from the initial infection.
The creepy effects on humans are predicated with SUGGESTS or COULD BE—red flags for scare-mongering journalism and bad-science research grants.
http://www.capcvet.org/capc-recommendations/toxoplasma
http://www.cdc.gov/parasites/toxoplasmosis/gen_info/faqs.html
If you don’t eat undercooked meat, unwashed fruits and vegetables, or cat poop, you shouldn’t have anything to worry about.
Kip says:
Thus, and I repeat just for emphasis, feral cats should be rounded up by animal control officers and either adopted into homes that will confine them to the owners house and/or property, or euthanized…
Beg to disagree, and for a good reason. Cats are very territorial. If a feral cat has staked out a territory, other cats will respect it. They might pass through, but they won’t stay.
The best solution (in the city, at least) is to trap feral cats, neuter or spay them, and return them to where they were trapped. That stops the breeding, and keeps other cats away.
I know this works. After volunteering for several years at the local Humane Society shelter I’ve seen the results, and also heard that it works from lots of people. We did it at home, too: a feral, semi-tame stray decided to make our yard its territory, so we caught it, got it fixed (the Humane Society does it for free; they also gave it shots for distemper, rabies, etc., and a flea treatment).
That cat has been in our yard for the past eight years, and it keeps all other cats out. Food is its pay — $10 for 20 a pound bag, which lasts 4 – 5 months.
If we just eliminated it, other cats would move in. That’s what they do. So this is the best solution for all concerned.
And we’ve never seen that cat kill a bird. It gets plenty of rodents, but the birds are too quick and alert. I suppose it could catch a sick, slow bird. But that’s Darwin for you.
“how many shelf-feet are dedicated to cat food? Cat food sales, pet supply sales, humane society intakes, and surveys of pet owners gives us a good idea of the national domestic cat population.”
I myself suggested that cat food sales would likely give us a far better idea of populations…but those numbers are not used in any of the studies I have seen.
In fact, cat food sales would likely put an upper limit on owned cats, as most people do not support a cat on human food…about the only items of which a cat would touch are meats.
And the Humane Societies are one of the groups which dispute these figures of 60,000,000 or more feral cats, 10,000,000 in Florida alone, as well as doubting the numbers of birds and small vermin killed.
Small vermin killed which some here seem to lump into a number sited as a grievous crime. And now cat owners are all insane retards with brain infecting parasites ruling their behaviors and responses.
Krikey!
No need to look for proxies for cat populations–shelf feet, etc.
Many of the cat numbers in the studies referenced multiple times in this discussion are based on Pet Food Industry estimates. They need to have a handle on the facts.
http://www.embracepetinsurance.com/pet-industry/pet-statistics
In 2013, the PFI estimated Americans owned 73,639,400 cats.
http://www.petfoodinstitute.org/?page=PetPopulation
“And we’ve never seen that cat kill a bird. It gets plenty of rodents, but the birds are too quick and alert. I suppose it could catch a sick, slow bird. But that’s Darwin for you.”
Exactly…too quick and alert.
My two cats have brought home an amount of birds that I could count on my hands over a period of three years. And one of them never even breaks a single feather…not sure how he picks them up in his teeth, jumps up the two jumps needed to enter through the cat doors, without harming them…but he does.
She kills them…lived in the wild longer before being adopted is the likely reason. She understands they are food. For him…they are toys.
But my recounting of the several dozen doves and squirrels inhabiting my yards was not idle chit chat…it was to illustrate an important point.
My cats tried every day for years and never caught one of those doves, whose numbers increased steadily for a few years until their were always a few groups of them under one or more of my several bird feeders.
I also have many, many woodpeckers, cardinals, scrub jays and blue jays, mockingbirds, chickadees, and some others that I do not know what they are. I am not a birder…just a casual observer. And a fan…I am sure my net contribution is far into the positive side with the half dozen bird feeders and dozens of fruit trees and bushes i have planted and maintain. Hell, they eat MOST of my mangoes every year.
So my cats have caught a few over the years…a very few. I know one was because an incautious mockingbird made it’s nest in a small pygmy date palm (phoenix roebellenii) next to my driveway…once Dewey saw that, the two chicks were toast…I tried to move it but no luck. Bad nest siting. Tree was only five feet high.
But that bird of prey that came to visit last Spring ate every one of those doves, and I do not know how many other birds, and plus all of the many squirrels…in a few weeks!
I am not sure if it was a large hawk, or an owl…seeing it out of the corner of my eye only. I suspect it was a hawk. Owls tend to sweep in low and on a long trajectory, and hunt at dusk and dawn. Plus they make a racket with their whooing and screeching while inhabiting an area.
These creatures all have predators, and in fact I think that any cats are in grave danger from the Burmese pythons which are now taking over the state…some reports are that there are few small mammals remaining in the everglades ecosystem.
I have wondered if an owl could catch and eat a cat…or even a hawk that large…I think they could catch them, but the question is how would the cat react? Could it save itself? Or would the claws in the back of the neck paralyze it?
Snake owners…those are some weirdoes, if you ask me…but no one did. Those things have eaten the owners children on occasion!
“feral cats should be rounded up by animal control officers and either adopted into homes that will confine them ”
Feral cats, s anyone who has ever tried to interact with one knows, are generally very wary of people, and would not take to being confined or to living in close proximity to people. I am sure there are exceptions, which likely relate to being not 100% feral, but cats which are not handled by humans before a certain age are crazy lunatics if you approach them…it would never work. They would nearly all have to be slaughtered if this was decided on.
Feral mice have a big advantage over cats in that it takes a lot of mice to eat one bird.
https://youtu.be/ATXFCryzvgU
http://www.livescience.com/7335-mice-caught-eating-birds-alive.html
…big statistical advantage…
Clearly, Gough Island needs cats.
“Awful is encouraging animal disease-vectors to deposit their infected feces all over neighborhoods full of human families. In saner times, we eradicated disease vectors”
Animal disease vectors, like, for example, the birds which carry avian diseases such as influenza, or pigs that do to, or the combination of them which is thought to be the source of the eventual next flu pandemic?
Or maybe you mean the rats and mice which carry plague and numerous other diseases…which cats just happen to control.
Just admit it…you are a cat hater, pure and simple, and your extreme hatred for them apparently extends to any who do not share your hate.
You consider them parasites. This is the position of a kook…and actual crank.
You gullibly believe wildly exaggerated numbers with no trace of skepticism, a completely unscientific position to take in any context or circumstance.
You believe toxoplasmosis has infected the brains of every cat owner in the world, even, apparently, those whose cats never eat any wild animals (which is nearly every house raised cat…regardless of whether they go outside), and deposit their waste in carefully prepared and buried holes in the ground.
You are really out there, that is for sure. Keep raving.
You say you are amused by my rants…cool!
I am not upset and ranting…I am just talking…but you apparently believe we need to eradicate 73 million American,s pets from the Earth, and kill a predator which is widely credited with keeping rodent populations in check for most of human history, all over the world.
You yourself posted stats above that confirm bird populations are INCREASING!
So what the hell are you even worried about? There are few predators in the Eastern US…and it is well known that there must be to maintain balance in any ecosystem
Cats harm no one, and people love them…but apparently at least one nutty person wants to murder the companions of tens of millions of people…over a delusion.
OMG, Verdeviewer…that video of the mice eating the albatross chic is horrifying!
Funny how the rats that seem to have done the majority of the harm to these island birds do not seem to register in the minds of the cat haters.
I had forgotten that there were people who actually and strongly reviled felines, to a pathological degree.
Dang.
Neither of the linked sources say one single word about the methodology they use to reach those numbers.
And the numbers are far from a match, and are completely at odds with other data, such as the polling I posted yesterday from Gallup.
The Gallup polls themselves showed that more people owned dogs than cats, by double digit percentages, and multiple dog home only slightly higher for cats than dogs.
But the Gallup poll at least gave a methodology, and numbers for margin of error.
Numbers that are twenty million higher from a one line statement of a company selling pet insurance are not in the slightest way credible.
The Gallup poll also showed that in 1995, 41% of those polled had at least one cat, but 5 years later the number was 52%.
All of this makes it clear these are WAG’s…mere extrapolation from scanty data unscientifically obtained and with no systematic method for arriving at a correct, or even credibly consistent, number.
But, that is all only a small part of the main bone of contention…the number of feral cats.
The study in noted above, in which a claim or several hundred thousand was found, after a systematic check, to be off by two orders of magnitude…roughly what I had thought based on my investigation and some common sense.
The numbers in the study from WMI just gave a estimate for owned pets, then assumed that there was an equal number of feral animals…clearly not based on anything but another wild a$$ guess. At best. My thought it is more likely a deliberate exaggeration.
I will not go into it too far, but a very large number of Florida communities, almost every managed community with an HOA, a POA, or a CDD, tightly restricts pets. Many refuse to allow them.
Many more restrict them to a small animal, dogs under 20 or 25 pounds is a common number from when i was house hunting a few years ago.
Many of the gated communities, which is a very large proportion of all housing in Florida, and is the vast majority of all new construction, have a no cats outside rule…strictly enforced. This includes virtually every condo, and nearly every apartment…you basically cannot have a cat or dog at many, and if you do their is a huge security deposit.
I can tell you that in the places where I work all da long, the majority of which are managed properties, I have never once seen a cat outside in 12 years of working outside every day. They are just not allowed.
This is by no means all of Florida housing…but it is a substantial percentage. One thing I know for sure…there are no feral animals in these places whatsoever.
BTW, the only reason i am still talking about this is because I am curious about why some people will believe something for which there is no direct evidence.
It is a very similar phenomenon to what we talk about here every day.
“Breaking Down the Bogus Smithsonian Catbird Study
As advocates for all animals, we were dismayed by the irresponsible and biased conclusions of a 2011 study on bird deaths from the Smithsonian Institution.
“Population demography of Gray Catbirds in the suburban matrix: sources, sinks and domestic cats,” published in the Journal of Ornithology1, is a limited study that cannot be extrapolated to represent the complex cat-bird dynamic nationwide. Much more disturbing, however, is how this data has been manipulated to malign cats and used widely to dredge up a false and counterproductive debate.
The Smithsonian’s Conclusions Exaggerate the Facts
The Smithsonian study relies on an extremely small sample size (just 69 birds) in a very limited radius (three sites within mere miles of each other). Opponents of Trap-Neuter-Return have already latched onto this study to clamor for cats indoors—a concept that, it is worth noting, is a death sentence for countless feral cats—but they are mishandling the data and misleading the public.
It is absurd to think that a minor study conducted on a single species of bird in a small area of suburban Maryland could accurately be used to characterize the relationship between cats and birds in landscapes all over America.
The press release circulated by the Smithsonian’s National Zoo further exaggerates and misconstrues the study’s findings, dramatically painting cats as the major threat to birds by stating that of the birds studied “almost half of the deaths were connected to domestic cats”—specifically, 47%. However, a quick look at the numbers shows this figure to be greatly manipulated:
•Of the 69 birds studied, 42 died during the study. Only six of those deaths can be directly attributed to cats through observation.
•The authors guessed that another three bird deaths could be attributed to cats based on circumstantial evidence.
•The authors inflate the figure to 47% by focusing the discussion only on the number of birds that died due to predators, not the total number of birds in the study. They ignore the 27 birds that did not die, as well as the nine birds that died due to causes other than predation, and the 14 birds that died due to unknown predators. This leaves 19 birds that were killed by known predators.
•The number of deaths attributable to cats is 9 birds out of 69—or 13%—not 47%.
•But when taken as a percentage of all of the deaths from known predators, (9 out of 19) the number of birds killed by cats inflates to 47%—hyping cats’ impact on bird populations way out of proportion.
Statistics are a powerful persuasive tool because people often take them at face value, but numbers can be manipulated too. The omission of 50 birds—well more than half the sample size—in calculating this figure dramatically changes the conclusions of the study.
As the researchers themselves note, they also failed to examine whether the few deaths attributed to cats were additive—more birds dying than normal—or compensatory—consistent with the normal mortality rate for this species. Considering data from the North American Breeding Bird Survey, which shows the Maryland catbird population to be on the rise, the former seems unlikely. Cats specialize in hunting rodents; also, studies have confirmed that the birds who are caught are generally weaker animals who are not likely to have survived.
Humans are the True Threat to Birds
When rationally viewed, the Smithsonian study and the resulting press flurry has added nothing to the overall conversation about how to protect animals. Instead, it has only drawn attention away from the real threat to birds—people.
Alley Cat Allies wants what’s in the best interest of all animals, including birds. Environmental experts say we must change the way we are impacting our environment. Until we can stop going in circles, perpetuating this false debate, and focus on the real threat, we are truly just chasing our tails.”
http://www.alleycat.org/Page.aspx?pid=945
Thank you for that bit of information Larry.
I love roaming the desert when I visit my Brother and I’ve kept my eye out for signs of feral cats, along with those noisy kinds of snakes, but I never spotted evidence of feral cats in the desert.
Some mountain lion sign, occasional cat prints, (lynx?) near hill sides and brushy gullies, but that was it.
I was beginning to wonder if domestic cats just don’t get enough time to acclimatize and actually become feral in the desert. Abandoned in a hot dry land far from water where even the humans from south of the border consider cats as good cuisine.
Once about ten miles south of Pahrump, NV I was following a water course, (course, no water), looking for chalcedony. I used my flashlight as it got dark and ended up a fair distance from the car when it got really dark.
Still a beautiful starry night with Vegas glowing in the distance I thought it was bright enough that I didn’t need the flashlight to walk back to the car.
I was amazed how many footsteps I stirred up during that walk. I tried the flashlight a couple of times, but the footsteps would immediately stop and what eyes I caught, turned away.
I figure the softer steps were jackrabbits as they tended to dash around me in a half circle. The coyotes only moved some small stones and didn’t make loud footsteps. I believe it was a coyote’s eyes that I spotted. Louder footsteps I suspect were antelope, only I couldn’t figure out where they had hidden as I blundered around during daylight and dusk.
Though I shouldn’t be surprised. I once watched a pair of decent antlers about twenty feet away inch slowly past me in a field in Pennsylvania. When the buck reached a larger much taller brushy area, I heard him leap up and get the _ell out of there. That buck had to be crawling on his belly to stay so low. I was still hunting while following a fence row looking for pheasants and apparently cornered the buck at the end of a brushy area. My slow stop and walk process must’ve forced him to crawl away in the waist high weeds. I enjoyed the show.
Kip
RE: the Loss ,et al paper.
Do you have a base count anywhere of the population of birds in the “contiguous United States” as referred to in the Loss paper? They don’t appear to provide one , and their “estimates” of annual predation counts seem vastly overstated.
With the numbers they are peddling, several “contiguous US species” should already be close to extinction and listed on the IUCN Redlist. Curiously, the only one I could find there was the Northern Bobwhite.
Although it is a ground-nesting bird, Birdlife International doesn’t even mention predation by feral cats as a source of its decline. Instead it cites over hunting (20,000,000 annually to 1994) and habitat loss as major factors of its decline.
http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/speciesfactsheet.php?id=30131
I was wondering the same thing.
How many birds are there?
But my big problem is these estimates of the numbers of cats in the wild.
The math does not work. There would have to be cities of cats, like there are cities of people.
I agree with you Menicholas,
The math doesn’t work at all, and their study appears to be contrived of yet more smoke and mirrors “estimates’.
“Existing estimates of mortality from cat predation are speculative and not based on scientific data 13–16
or, at best,are based on extrapolation of results from a single study 18. In addition, no large-scale mortality estimates exist for mammals,which form a substantial component of cat diets.We conducted a data-driven systematic review of studies that estimate predation rates of owned and un-owned cats, and estimated the magnitude of bird and mammal mortality caused by all cats across the contiguous United States (all states excluding Alaska and Hawaii). We estimate that free-ranging domestic cats
kill 1.4–3.7 billion birds and 6.9–20.7 billion mammals annually, and that un-owned cats cause the majority of this mortality.”
A) They acknowledge that their own study is a “review of studies” that they themselves state are “speculative and not based on scientific data”
B) Nowhere do they cite a single population figure for “all cats across the contiguous United States” (presumably the free-ranging cats), yet they freely cite numbers of supposedly cat-murdered birds , i.e “1.4 to 3.7 BILLION annually”.
There aren’t enough birds in the entirety of North America, never mind the “contiguous United States”, to have supported this level of predation by any single animal , or even all predatory animals combined, over the past decades.
This study looks about as convincing and “scientific” as the IPCC’s data.
Reply to msbehavin’ ==> Again, the Loss et al. paper in full is available here with the supplemental data here.
There are vastly more birds numerically than people generally believe.
Yes, the data on the Northern Bobwhite, for instance, list the the threats as:
” Threats — Changes in agricultural land use (weed removal and herbicide use), forestry (high-density pine plantations), and lack of use of prescribed fire have resulted in widespread habitat fragmentation (Brennan 1999). Over 20,000,000 individuals were recently being killed annually by hunters in the USA (del Hoyo et al. 1994); poor management of populations could result in declines. ”
The Loss et al. study found free-roaming cats will take northern bobwhite nestlings, conveniently at ground level. This fact makes northern bobwhite very rare in suburban settings, even when lots sizes are large and there are nearby wooded areas, similar to where I live in the summer Upstate NY. This brings about what is sometimes referred to as “local extinction” or extirpation — Northern Bobwhite are no longer found in my immediate neighborhood.
However, as the Northern Bobwhite has a huge and varied range, wiping them out of suburban areas doesn’t affect the larger picture nearly as much as habitat loss from land use changes and the hunting by humans.
Kip:
Thanks for your reply, and a very interesting essay and discussion!
We can agree that cats will prey on birds and other animals, and can be devastating to island (including Australia) populations of birds,etc. where felines were never originally part of the natural ecosystem.
I see there is definitely room for more accurate research on the extent/impact of predation by free roaming cats , particularly in suburbia, where a host of other more compelling factors contributing to species decline are glossed over or ignored altogether.
.