"We’ve lost 3 billion birds since 1970 in North America" Topic

"Nearly 3 billion fewer birds exist in North America today than in 1970.

While scientists have known for decades that certain kinds of birds have struggled as humans (and bird-gobbling cats) encroach on their habitats, a new comprehensive tally shows the staggering extent of the loss. Nearly 1 in 3 birds — or 29 percent — has vanished in the last half century, researchers report September 19 in Science…."
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Amicalement
Armand

Too bad…

They were good eating!

I think someone is using some made up numbers.

My dog is doing her part to help the birds. She has 4x confirmed feline kills.

Wolfhag

Glup!….

Amicalement
Armand

I had chicken for dinner last night and also for lunch today.

I wonder if that counts?

That's horrifying! (Wolfhag's cat-murdering dog, I mean)

Scott,
I told my neighbor that when they let their cat loose from their yard it enters the "Food Chain". Your cat kills birds and my dog kills cats.

Wolfhag

TBH, I've never seen a dog kill a cat …

"Chase" a cat? Hell, yes … but my dogs chased tractors, birds, their own tails FFS! :-)
But kill a cat? Nope. Never saw it … (they "might" have hidden the corpse!).

I don't think it's something I'd be cool with, TBH …

Our dogs kill anything that triggers their hunting instincts. Which is why our dogs are never off the leash.(except the old ones that are to old to go hunting deer).

But any animal smaller then a lynx that is stupid enough to walk into a dog pen with 4-8 dies. And yes sadly one old cat was that stupid some years back.
Mice, shrews, and birds die in some numbers.

Our dog was sudden death to ground hogs, but that was about all we ever found.

What if another dog (bigger) decided to walked in your dog pen…? (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

It wouldn't be a very happy dog for long.
The dogs have a true pack system. With its leader, and second in Command, Denali is the queen. And her oldest daughter fjellbris is the heir.

Even when we have some dogs that don't get along and can't be together with out our supervision. If a foreign intruder comes, all internal pack politics are forgotten and all attention is on the intruder.

Many a German shepherd who has tried to be big and strong shrink fast when it tries to bark at us when we pass it, only to get a reply form 4 rather sturn siberians.

It's rather fascinating just watching the morning routine. When we let them out in the pen. They all strutt around, peeing were the others have peed. Some high tight tails to show a bit of tension, particularly from Huldra who doesn't quite fit into the pack hierarchy. She's a bit unsure and overcompansate.

Then comes Denali 10 and a half. Running around barking orders, and the rest scamper away. To do other morning business.

If some deer or badger runs around the forests behind the pen, they will screech and howl, and run frantically back and forth. Tasty they think.
However they are not fan of moose in the dark. They sometime walk into our property in the fall when it's dark to go apple picking. Loud warning barks will be made, making sure we know about this big intruder.

Human intruders get loud howls and barks during the day and the same warning barks when it's dark.

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3 weeks later and the birds still havent arrived. This is a major issue -- the birds wont have time to breed and migrate back to Alaska. We are looking at a population collapse.

That's from Oct 4. Has anything been reported since then?

Birds still havent arrived. Which is concerning. There is an article in the paper today about the issue, but its behind a paywall.

Found an article from last week. Which ties into the original post -- we havent monitored birds enough, and when something happens, we really dont know if its a disaster or a natural cycle.

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