10,000 Birds

JANUARY 20, 2017

Last night I lay awake from 4 am til almost 5, worrying about the black-footed ferrets I met in Montana and the humans who had devoted their lives to helping them. As my fellow blogger Meredith Mann pointed out last summer, the Endangered Species Act in particular has been a massive success for birds.

Endangered Species 100

Endangered Species Ferrets Montana United States 100

10,000 Birds

JULY 23, 2014

There are the endemics, which are odd in their own way, and then there introduced species, which are so varied in their type and origin that you get the feeling you’ve arrived at the aftermath of a small zoo that escaped. What is surprising is quite how many species did end up here, and how economically unimportant they were.

New Zealand 161

New Zealand Possums Rabbits Ferrets 161

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 16, 2012

So, 5% of all birds might mean 10% of all song birds and really, it might be 20% or more of all the birds that die in a given year for specific species, with the species involved being those that are common to a specific habitat in which the cats are found. Is this a problem? 3) Some of these birds were going to die anyway.

Cats 176

Cats Boston Ferrets Killing 176

10,000 Birds

APRIL 27, 2012

It’s one thing to decide that among humans, the most successful relationships are those that end in a mortality event, although even then it’s a little morbid. The males swagger and boom while the females watch; eventually the gaudiest males and the most impressed females creep off into the bushes and propogate the species.

Ferrets 178

Ferrets Badgers Coyotes Ducks 178

10,000 Birds

JULY 11, 2012

Animal rights is concerned with preventing the suffering or even use of animals by humans. Wildlife conservation is concerned with protecting wildlife at the level of species or perhaps population. A more problematic conflict is that fought over what to do with damaging introduced species. It’s only natural.

Animal Rights 255

Animal Rights Rights Animal New Zealand 255