All of Hawaii's Birds on Verge of
Extinction:
1/3 of all US birds facing permanent death
By Bent Lorentzen
Back when the Industrial Revolution began and set the physics of global warming into motion - some 150 years ago - yellow canaries often were used to warn miners of the release of poison gas, such as methane and CO1. If the caged birds died and stopped singing, due to their hypersensitive metabolism, it warned the miners that they could be next.
In a 2009 scientific study prepared by the US Department of the Interior, birds are again warning humanity of deadly danger. All of the 113 bird species indigenous to Hawaii are on the verge of extinction. This amounts to fully one-third of all US bird species.
The director of Cornel University's ornithology laboratory stated "That is the epicenter of extinctions and near-extinctions."
Habitat destruction, the invasion of non-indigenous species, global warming and lack of funding are contributing factors. In other words, human activity. Already half of Hawaii's birds are extinct.
When I read this report I flashed back to my undergraduate days as an environmental science major. My college adviser, a brilliant Scottish ornithologist who could whistle most languages of the world's songbirds, hammered home through tough science and mathematics that birds are often the barometer of all ecosystems, from which humanity cannot by any means divorce itself. Back then, in the early seventies, he involved me in an international study of pesticides and their effect on birds of prey, focusing mainly on DDT. Without getting into complex biochemistry and the manner by which the metabolites of organochlorines can appear deceptively benign in atmospheric environments, accumulating in the fatty tissue of aquatic invertebrates, then accumulating in those animals that eat them, only to later have a cumulative and deadly effect up the food chain upon the viability of egg shells among birds of prey, had the US Bald Eagle not been facing extinction, scientists likely would not have persuaded Congress to enact legislation that curbed the domestic use of DDT. This step was taken despite the fact that in the short term DDT is effective in controlling mosquitoes that can spread deadly diseases.
Considering the planet as an ecological organism, the use of many pesticides and our political non-scientific arguments against the anthropogenic factors of global warming is much like tightening a tourniquet around one's throat to stop a bleeding head wound.
From high-flying atmospheric bacteria with heretofore “unknown” DNA to crustaceans living in caustic sulfur environments in the deep blue sea, not one bit of life on this planet is not related and interdependent.
In the summer of 2003, over 50,000 human beings died in Europe alone due to a historically unprecedented heat wave.
So what now are these birds dying in America warning us of?
My goodness, a child in kindergarten could figure that one out. You don't stick a fork in your mom’s eye to get her to buy you some candy. Stupid is as stupid does.
Link to the State of the Birds report. Includes a video. http://www.stateofthebirds.org/
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Comments: 50
Other animals around the world are endangered, due to poaching or environmental encroachments over the last 50 years.
'Chelle understates it; 'disturbing' may be inadequately descriptive.
Or if still in doubt, google "Hawaii birds extinction"
On the other side of the picture, we have birds here in Eastern Canada, bald eagles and several species of ducks for instance, we never saw when I was growing up.
This worries me - what's going on with the bees now? Salud
Thank you for posting to this group whose only purpose is to thank you for posting to this group.
We did our part to help a couple years back, when two of our pine trees died we left them standing. One of the trees was selected as a nesting site for a pair of red headed woodpeckers.
I have birds, they are so delicate and so many things can kill them. Febreeze is something you should never spray if you have birds or want any birds to remain living!
man is such that they tsk, tsk about these things but figure someone else will figure out a solution. Thanks bent, for bringing it to the attention of the only ones who can make a difference. US!
Bird population declines and increases are one of those nice mysteries which keep scientists up many hours trying to establish causal relationships. It's sort of like global warming -- how much is nature and how much is man made.
Habitat encroachment is probably the biggest challenge for many bird populations, that along with power lines, wind turbines, and all the pesticides still in use. DDT decimated many bird populations but most have recovered.
Nature does its part also ---- the whooping crane population here in Texas took a fairly heavy hit this year due to a lack of their preferred food, blue crabs, in their summer residence areas.
The blue crab demise has been caused by drought in the particular area, Aransas National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) where they like to spend their summers. Interestingly, there is another NWR about 50 miles to the north which has had an abundance of crabs, but so far apparently only one family of cranes has ventured to the north.
A couple of the warbler species here in Texas are on the endangered list primarily because of cow birds. Cow birds are parasitic nesters which means they lay their eggs in the nests of other birds who then raise the cowbirds --- at some point the cowbird nestlings kill any young birds that should have been raised in the nest.
At Fort Hood and a few other locations traps are being used to get rid of the cowbirds. I'm not sure how successful the program may be. And here in Texas we have expanded the hunting season for snow geese who have enjoyed a population explosion ---- to the point of doing a lot of damage to the tundra where they spend their summers.
"more than 800 species inhabiting terrestrial, coastal, and ocean habitats, including Hawaii. Among these species, 67 are Federally-listed as endangered or threatened. In addition, more than 184 species are designated as species of conservation concern due to a small distribution, high-level of threats, or declining populations."
This means that about 8% of all US birds are endangered or threatened. And while many species are currently declining, the reprot also says "The data show dramatic increases in many wetland birds such as pelicans, herons, egrets, osprey, and ducks".
Sorry to be such a wet blanket on your doom and gloom story Bent, but thats what I do.
Bent, that photo is heart-breaking.
I wonder if people who visit Hawaii know that, since it was colonized by the Polynesians, 98% of the endemic animals species have been extirpated. Mosquitos aren't native to Hawaii-- Europeans brought them. What a paradise the original Hawaii must have been!
No one can deny the damage we are doing to the ecology of our planet and it would be an act of lunacy to ignore th effects of that damage...including making predictions about the future results of our human activity.
But for the sake of accuracy....
From The Economist: "More species are under threat than ever before according to the World Conservation Union (see chart above). Its “Red List” gives warning that 16,306 species are now under threat of extinction, nearly 200 more than in 2005. This number has risen steadily since the first report in 1996."
Before you get too concerned, consider this: "Since life first appeared on Earth some 3.8 billion years ago, it has been estimated that more than 99.9% of all species have gone extinct. Billions of species have gone extinct throughout geologic history. Many of these went extinct during mass extinction events, the most famous and well documented of which took place some sixty-four million years ago at the end of the Mesozoic Era. This mass extinction event marked the end of the reign of dinosaurs."
And consider this from The Economist: "Nobody knows how many species occupy the planet. Most experts think 10 million is roughly correct, though they have only formally noted 1.4 million."
http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2007/09/999-of-all-species-have-gone-extinct.html
Or if your prefer, (as it seems most people do) continue to moan and deplore the imminent end of the Earth, a fantasy that is as absurd as it is dangerous.
I'm sure you know all of this better than I do, Bent--I'm just saying it because of the undercurrent in your articles that everything is the fault of the Industrial Revolution. The conflict of interest between us and other species--the conflict of interest between different species in general--is as old as our interdependence.
When I evaluate such issues, I do so from an ethnobiological perspective, and hence, it is anthropogenic, no matter how you slice and dice the problem.
Simply put, human behavior is the cause... and the solution Not complicated at all, except by those who wish to continue old, self-destructive behavioral patterns.
The cause of what? The extinction of some species? Sure. The extinction of all species that have become extinct? Nope.
"Not complicated at all, except by those who wish to continue old, self-destructive behavioral patterns."
This is innuendo....a implication not supported by a specific argument.
As to other extinction events, as with various supervolcanic eruptions and metoer strikes, yes, that's another story. Life on this planet in the midst of a cosmic desert filled with radiative pressures is quite tentative, so there is always a pressure against life. All it takes is some bit of intelligent stupidity, and the balance between life and its anhilation is always a razor's edge.
"The cause of climate change IS anthropogenic." This statement is exclusive of any other reason for climate change. Following the direction of your logic...there would have been no climate changes BEFORE the onset of man's activities. I don't think you intended this meaning...but if this is the case...the structure of your statement is faulty.
"....the balance between life and its anhilation is always a razor's edge."
I agree with this completely.
The metaphor that came to me, as I thought about your argument, is the US Interstate highway system. Many of those highways follow old native American traderoutes, which may have followed old deer or other animal trails way back when due to the natural countours enabling easy path-making due to physical geography, so essentially we could say that the Interstate system is "natural."
However, for the system to work safely we have man-made rules and regulations based on good science, since the hjman body wasn't quite evolved for such inertial activity You don't drink and drive, you don't talk on the mobile phone while driving, you keep (x) feet away from the car in front of you based on (x)miles per hour, you behave non-aggressively, etc. Follow those rules and your chances of surviving a lifetime of highway driving is pretty good. Don't follow those rules, and your chances of surviving decrease proportionately to your breaking the rules. Rules based on interdisciplinary science. But the stuff of nature can always cause accidents, like a deer that suddenly pops into your windshield, or other such incidents which what insurance companies once called "acts of God."
It's all natural, at the ethnobiological level of analysis, but the more one wises up to establishing rules of behavior that follows dictates that are supportive of increasing your chances of survival, well, the greater your chances of survival. The issues of climate change are based on good science attempting to provide rules for human behavior that will increase humanity's chances of surival.
Make sense?
Science is not good or bad. The application of science can be good....or bad...so to speak. But the issue of the causes for climate change...which are numerous and unlikely to all be considered....has not been completely settled. For instance...the most prevalent green house gas is water vapor. http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
My point is that the jury is still out...on two issues..are we in a warming trend...or a climate change...and either way...how much impact has man had upon the weather changes....which begs the question ...what can we do about it if we are the largest contributing factor OR if we are not?
I am afraid that by blaming the industrial revolution, or modern man for global damage, you are ignoring the creation of the Sahara desert by over grazing, the extinction of large mammals in North America by over hunting, and many other sins of ancient, very non industrial humans. And of course, as was stated above, most extinctions occured before humans existed, and even now most are not related to human activity.
Of course Farmer Slim asks the important question - what do you propose as a solution? Should we return to pre-industrial culture? I hope you dont believe that.
You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control Your attitude toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be Mastering change rather than allowing it to master you."
For example, let's look at the Maersk conglomorate/monopoly. It is the primary supplier of foreign, often slave-wrought products from afar to Wal-Mart in the US, and Maersk also owns Denmark's primary supermarket chains, as well as our media and energy infrastructure.
So Maersk will go to a little village, let's say Vietnam, and offer 2 cents per kilo for their rice. That price may be twice as much as they get via the local economy in the village marketplace, so everyone is excited & sells all their rice for that price, thinking that they now will be able to buy twice as much rice as ever before to feed their children. Only problem is, now all the local rice is bought up, and they've been forced to now buy at the global price of nearly one dollar a kilo, which no one can possibly afford. So they are then forced into going into the forests and devaste wetlands and rainforest to find other means of satisfying Maersk's hungry ships.
Fair Trade is a good example of how to better engage various local economies into the global marketplace, but definately not what the G-8 for example would suggest.
It's really quite simple, Sy. Just use the golden rule when engaging in the world marketplace, and also, let's take serious what science discovers as it learns how to better develop technologies for the advancement of humanity. I'm all for brave new horizons. Good goodnes, a simple tour into the serfdoms of the pre-industrial revolution shows clearly how exzactly the same patriarchical forces (here monarchies), based on some pyramid scheme from eh Vatican, which founded/justified much of Europe's mass slavery simply got reinvented in the cities after.
It is so very simple to understand both the causes of our currrent problems, ie: ethnic, economic and climate change, and the anthropogenic solutions to those problems. Good science and a bit more morality, in terms of that golden rule principle, which in itself is also good science, since it involves how we ought now begin to use that bit of newly evolved gray matter right behind our eyes that engenders cognitive and emotional empathy. For that to occur, we need to begin doing a far better job parenting and socializing our children, for those centers in the brain were evolved to get softwired synaptically by learning.