As the largest cause of bird death, felines account for 3.7 billion annually. While not all are natural predators, feral cats have been a growing problem on tropical islands.
Cats are filthy creatures. Into everyone’s garbage. The run wild.
Ed Englertsays
I’m either misreading the article here or there’s something amiss in the numbers of birds killed as cited. Adding together the author’s cited numbers of birds killed annually by the “seven other modes” equals 5,030,000,000 (5.03 billion) birds. The author also states that 67,000,000 (0.067 billion) birds are killed each year by lawn pesticides, and that number equates to “about 10% of the bird population”. If 67,000,000 is representative of the total bird population, the bird population would be approximately 670,000,000 (0.67 billion). If 670,000,000 represents the total bird population, then how do the “seven other modes” end up killing 5,030,000,000 (5.03 billion) birds annually (or roughly 7.5 times as many birds as exist at any given time)? Taken at face value, the numbers of bird kills cited in this article should have resulted in the extinction of the entire bird species 7.5 times over, every year.
Julia Engelbrechtsays
Hi Ed-
Thanks for your comment. You are correct with your calculations and it turns out I misread my source. What I have updated the article to say, and what should have been said all along is that 10% of all birds exposed to pesticides die from them, not 10% of the entire bird population. I apologize for my error and thank you for bringing that to my attention.
Definitive footnote please for each of the seven conclusions will be helpful in battling the many headed hydra and Wacka-Mole to help with the Busters of Myths Against Wind. Thank you for your good efforts.
See todays tweet on the 400k bird death issue at @AvitecDK or http://www.avitec.dk. Follow-up in coming days on “7 things” perspective.
Cats are filthy creatures. Into everyone’s garbage. The run wild.
I’m either misreading the article here or there’s something amiss in the numbers of birds killed as cited. Adding together the author’s cited numbers of birds killed annually by the “seven other modes” equals 5,030,000,000 (5.03 billion) birds. The author also states that 67,000,000 (0.067 billion) birds are killed each year by lawn pesticides, and that number equates to “about 10% of the bird population”. If 67,000,000 is representative of the total bird population, the bird population would be approximately 670,000,000 (0.67 billion). If 670,000,000 represents the total bird population, then how do the “seven other modes” end up killing 5,030,000,000 (5.03 billion) birds annually (or roughly 7.5 times as many birds as exist at any given time)? Taken at face value, the numbers of bird kills cited in this article should have resulted in the extinction of the entire bird species 7.5 times over, every year.
Hi Ed-
Thanks for your comment. You are correct with your calculations and it turns out I misread my source. What I have updated the article to say, and what should have been said all along is that 10% of all birds exposed to pesticides die from them, not 10% of the entire bird population. I apologize for my error and thank you for bringing that to my attention.
Definitive footnote please for each of the seven conclusions will be helpful in battling the many headed hydra and Wacka-Mole to help with the Busters of Myths Against Wind. Thank you for your good efforts.