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from the better-go-find-me-some-more-worms dept.
Disappearance of meadows and prairies, expansion of farmlands, use of pesticide blamed for 29 percent drop since 1970.
The number of birds in the United States and Canada has dropped by an astonishing 29 percent, or almost three billion, since 1970, scientists said on Thursday, saying their findings signalled a widespread ecological crisis.
Grassland birds were the most affected, because of the disappearance of meadows and prairies and the extension of farmlands, as well as the growing use of pesticides that kill insects that affects the entire food chain.
"Birds are in crisis," Peter Marra, director of the Georgetown Environment Initiative at Georgetown University and a co-author of the study published in the journal Science, was quoted by Reuters as saying.
Forest birds and species that occur in a wider variety of habitats - known as habitat generalists - are also disappearing.
"We see the same thing happening the world over, the intensification of agriculture and land use changes are placing pressure on these bird populations," Ken Rosenberg, an ornithologist at Cornell University and principal co-author of the paper in Science told AFP news agency.
"Now, we see fields of corn and other crops right up to the horizon, everything is sanitised and mechanised, there's no room left for birds, fauna and nature."
More than 90 percent of the losses are from just 12 species including sparrows, warblers, blackbirds, and finches.
The figures mirror declines seen elsewhere, notably France, where the National Observatory of Biodiversity estimates there was a 30 percent decline in grassland birds between 1989 and 2017.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Monday September 23 2019, @08:23PM (3 children)
...by outsourcing those problems to the developing world.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 24 2019, @04:49AM (2 children)
That is a popular excuse. The developing world would somehow be clean and pristine, if it weren't for all those developed world cooties.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Tuesday September 24 2019, @10:32AM (1 child)
Where would the developing world's industry be without the massive demand and funding of the developed world? It's western levels of consumption that are driving the environmental damage, regardless of where the stuff is manufactured or disposed of.
See the evidence c0lo [soylentnews.org] dug up in response to me.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 24 2019, @12:22PM
It'd be in worse shape with more impoverished people and less habitat, large tasty animals, etc.
Sorry, that's blatantly misguided. The next few years aren't going to be the only time of danger for Earth's ecosystems. What's going to matter is that no matter how you spin it, the developed world has declining population and the poorest parts of the developing world do not and will expand to consume all resources - unless they change.
And footprint is not footprint. The environmental footprint so described doesn't accurately describe one's harm to the environment - particularly centuries or millennia down the road when considering the footprint of one's descendants.
That higher consumption means indefinite negative population growth with considerable environmental protection. It's a good trade as a result.