10,000 Birds

MARCH 31, 2012

They reside there at the top of a small mountain sanctuary as mythical as my first remembrances of ancient thunderbirds, living, mating, and raising young. Their hallmark: They don’t kill. My first view of them was at a distance. Condors, like all New World vultures, can disturb the human psyche.

California Condor

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 24, 2023

Greater flamingoes winter in large numbers Kerkini’s wintering Flamingoes probably breed in Turkey Forty years ago Flamingoes were rare visitors to Greece: several thousand now winter on Kerkini Lake Kerkini is an artificial lake, its depth varying considerably throughout the year. Such an abundance of wildfowl attracts Peregrines.

Greece

4 The Love Of Animals

SEPTEMBER 13, 2011

Each animal they raise to adulthood is a step away from extinction, with the ultimate challenge to return them to the wild. We’ll see ambitious programs to save diverse species from the outback of Australia, the savannahs of East Africa, the Brazilian Amazon and some of the most successful zoo breeding programs in the world.

Pandas

10,000 Birds

JULY 21, 2022

It looked like a family of parrots were trying to kill each other” The Black-backed Puffback has what eBird describes as “a fiery red eye” eBird also explains the name: “When excited, males can raise fluffy white feathers on the rump to resemble a puffball.”

Ostriches

4 The Love Of Animals

NOVEMBER 24, 2009

If it did, the licking often prompts it to vomit up some of that kill for the other members of the pack to share. The Russians began by breeding a group of foxes according to one simple rule: they would walk up to a cage and put a hand on the bars. Foxes that slunk back in fear and snapped their teeth didn’t get to breed.

Wolves

Animal Ethics

APRIL 27, 2008

There is no happy ending for even the most humanely raised animal. And there is no good reason to breed, confine and kill animals for food unless we believe that economic benefit justifies killing. More and more people do not. We call ourselves vegetarians. Patti Breitman Fairfax, Calif.,

New York Times

Animal Ethics

FEBRUARY 6, 2007

Consider some of the victories: On November 5th, 2002, more than two and a half million Floridians voted "Yes" on Amendment 10 to amend the state constitution and prohibit the use of gestation crates , narrow metal cages where breeding pigs are kept for most of their lives. The full text of the amendment is available here.

Factory

Animal Ethics

MARCH 8, 2009

This sort of question can also be raised without benefit of hypothetical examples from future genetic engineering. Suppose further that such blood is obtained without killing the animal and without causing the animal pain. If, on the other hand, the legs are produced in factory conditions, there is a moral objection. KBJ: Ditto.

Vegetarian

10,000 Birds

JUNE 13, 2013

Serbia holds 13 per cent of the European breeding population of this “electrified” species which is not only Endangered in Europe but also listed as Globally Endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The grass is swaying under a passing vehicle, spreading pollen and killing me with allergy. An adult to raise its head.

Falcons

10,000 Birds

MARCH 14, 2011

Kills in Canada, Alaska and Mexico are not included in the count. Texas and North Dakota together account for 88% of the total yearly kill of sandhill cranes. Letters from Eden (Houghton Mifflin, 2006) will soon be followed by a memoir about the birds she has raised, healed, studied and followed throughout her life.

2011

10,000 Birds

MAY 30, 2013

Curiously, some eagles were also observed by the Ada Ciganlija Island, within Belgrade – in the breeding season! But persecution, killing and poisoning in the late 20th century has led to their demise and at the beginning of the new millennium, Serbia had only two to three pairs of Imperial Eagles. We must be doing something wrong?

Serbia

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 9, 2013

Mt Bruce, since you ask, is the Department of Conservation’s premier endangered bird breeding centre. Long-finned Eels swam in the rivers, and in their pens the breeding Blue Ducks where whistling away. And on this visit, we were there in time to see feeding for the kiwi chicks the centre was raising. A Kaka at Mt Bruce.

New Zealand

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 29, 2021

In the non-breeding season, Common Merganser all look pretty much like females. Not a bad look though – more attractive than the male breeding plumage, I think. Carrion Crows like to think of themselves as very modern birds. To enhance this image, they very much like to pose on power lines.

Birds

10,000 Birds

MAY 3, 2022

I should have known that birding High Island meant I would be 20 minutes away from a place where hundreds of thousands of shorebirds and waterbirds rest, feed, breed, and generally have a good time. I love American Avocets and I rarely see them in such marvelous breeding plumage, so I was in heaven. Clapper Rail. Back to the Flats.

Houston

10,000 Birds

MARCH 31, 2022

The Blue-crowned Laughingthrush (Wuyuan) is listed as Critically Endangered, as there are only about 250-280 birds spending the breeding season in Northeastern Jiangxi (and according to the HBW, it is not clear where they spend the non-breeding period). The shame would kill them.

San Diego

10,000 Birds

MARCH 20, 2011

Another 170 are in captivity, many of them breeding stock for reintroduction efforts. What could motivate gunmen (I cannot call them hunters) in two states to deliberately kill North America’s tallest and most critically endangered bird? One percent of the wild population of whooping cranes fell to guns this winter alone.

2011

10,000 Birds

JUNE 27, 2017

Ka’ena Point is also a breeding ground for the Federally protected Laysan albatross, where 45 nests were being carefully monitored by the non-profit Pacific Rim Conservation. The oldest Laysan albatross was last seen raising a chick on Midway Atoll in 2016, at age 66. They are docile and devoted parents who will not leave their nests.

Albatross

10,000 Birds

JUNE 7, 2012

A lovely looking and distinctive sounding bird (so they say, I sadly have not seen one…yet), the Kirtland’s Warbler can only be found during its breeding season in Jack Pine forests 5 to 20 years old in the northern Lower Peninsula of Michigan. Leopold and his friend Richard Loeb are two of the most infamous murderers in U.S.

Michigan

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 9, 2023

The latter is even captured in a somewhat gruesome video , in which the hornbill plucks a caged bird out of its cage and kills and eats it. At 15h59, the female picked up the fourth chick and killed it by repeatedly crushing it with her beak. One paper describes them breeding in a human settlement in abandoned clay jars.

Rhinoceros

10,000 Birds

MARCH 13, 2012

In 1856 Wahlberg was killed by an Elephant near Lake Ngami in Botswana without ever publishing an account of his travels, but fellow Swede Carl Sundevall catalogued his collection at the Stockholm Museum and described the birds Wahlberg collected. In 1964, Clancey’s “Birds of Natal and Zululand” raised the total to 590.

Mozambique

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 9, 2014

Fuller has not preached about the evils of the human practices that killed and dislocated the Passenger Pigeon; he hasn’t moaned and groaned or sentimentalized. In both countries, birds have been killed for reasons of food, commerce, and sport. It wasn’t just the mass killings in so many ways.

2014

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 14, 2019

Even if we couldn’t find time to raise the bins at a favorite patch, it only takes momentary glances into the sky and hearing chip notes from the trees to remind us that birds are on the move. Migration is happening. Every birder knows it. The old neighborhood standbys are quiet or maybe gone.

Costa Rica

10,000 Birds

MAY 25, 2023

During the breeding season, some Cattle Egrets look like teenage girls who have just discovered the existence of make-up, and consequently massively overdo it. While having somebody else raise your chicks like an attractive strategy to me, it is not without dangers. It is probably all downhill from here. What’s next?

Birds

Critter News

DECEMBER 12, 2009

Another animal dies at the Calgary Zoo and more questions are being raised about their practices. They were a part of the zoo’s breeding program for the rare birds. In November 2008, a virus killed a 15-month-old Asian elephant calf named Malti. I don't track zoos, but this seems like an unusually high number of casualties.

Zoos

Animal Ethics

JUNE 7, 2016

In light of this horrible incident, is it right for the zoo to carry on a breeding program that subjects more animals to such unnatural lives? Further, did those who reacted so strongly to Harambe’s killing go home and serve meat to their children? This horrible incident has raised some tough questions indeed.

Los Angeles

Animal Ethics

JULY 15, 2009

According to Stephanie Woodard's column in Prevention published today, the CDC reports that "certain types of MRSA infections kill 18,000 Americans per year—more than die from AIDS." Factory farms are concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) where animals are raised intensively and permanently confined in warehouses and sheds.

Factory Farm

10,000 Birds

JULY 4, 2023

What the Owl Knows is organized into nine chapters: introduction, adaptation (including vision and flight), research and researchers, vocalization, courtship and breeding, roosting and migration, cognition, and two chapters on owls and humans–captive owls (not zoos, educational owls) and owls in our cultural history.

Owls

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 28, 2023

I was a bit surprised to see a juvenile Grey Treepie in Shanghai – it seems too young to already be on migration, and there was an adult nearby, so most likely the species is breeding in Shanghai, along with approximately 24 million humans. Soldiers could probably learn a lot about camouflage from this species.

Tigers

10,000 Birds

APRIL 7, 2015

Penguins are also bellweathers of climate change; dwellers of remote areas you’ve (probably) never heard of; creatures who have developed unique, innovative ways of adapting to the harsh environments where they breed and rear chicks and the water environments in which they feed and swim.

Penguins

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 8, 2022

Hopefully, the winter time in Shanghai gives the Black-faced Buntings some time to relax from the challenges of the breeding season. In contrast, the females need to make sure not to get duped into raising actual cuckoos – the buntings are a targeted host species ( source ). The White-browed Thrush is not a lot more attractive.

Eggs

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 1, 2022

I have written about the interesting sex life of these jacanas a few times already (short version: female mates with male, lays a bunch of eggs for him to incubate and raise the chicks, leaves him, finds another male, repeat). The Little Grebe is of course a very common bird that can still surprise by its beauty in its breeding plumage.

Birds

10,000 Birds

JULY 4, 2022

As with Chinese male humans, having your own building is still vital to raising young. There was a breeding pair at Binjiang Forest Park this June. So, the birds start collecting mud and small sticks. Nest building: a good activity for a rainy day. You should try it too. Not going for the obvious either. Sometimes it works.

Birds