Critter News

MARCH 10, 2009

I responded to a post on animalblog that cited a recent article in the journal "Proceedings" of the National Academy of Sciences. Here's my response on medical research in general. I recently had a discussion about medical research using animals. It’s just a question of WILL.

Medical Research 100

Medical Research Medical Research Monkeys 100

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 16, 2023

As I frequently mention, science is quite wonderful. For example, this paper points out that migrating Bramblings prefer to feed in a habitat in which they are less likely to get killed. A paper illustrating the tradeoff between starving and being killed compared the weight of resident siskins with or without a sparrowhawk nearby.

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China Birds Reptiles Killing 147

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 13, 2018

Those bears live in the wild and are not used to humans. Lucky and his instructor were successful in bluffing this particular bear, yet the very next year in the same area, Hoshino was killed by a Brown Bear. From the behavioural point of view, what has happened? To them, people are alien and possibly a dangerous novelty.

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Animal Bears Stray Dog Blackbirds 136

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 20, 2014

The magnificent history and diversity of birds on Earth came into sharper focus this month with the publication of 28 new scientific papers in Science and other journals. So do parrots, some songbirds, humans, and a few other mammals. American Flamingo photo by Dick Culbert). Where do these abilities come from? Jarvis et al.

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Family Parrots Birds 2014 279

Animal Ethics

DECEMBER 18, 2006

I had a strong interest in science because of its reliance on reason and skepticism, which struck me as very good tools for truth seeking (which is ultimately what I am interested in). When I came across Philosophy, I immediately saw that it was the tree from which the branch of science had grown.

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Factory Farm Factory Farming Morals Factory 40

Animal Ethics

JANUARY 20, 2007

Here are three paragraphs from a recent essay by Roger Scruton : As I suggested, science provides authority for this weird morality only when clothed in moral doctrine. They, unlike human beings, “return our affection regardless of our merits.” To live with a human being is hard; to live with a mere animal is easy.

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Animal Apes Morals Animal Rights Movement 40

Animal Ethics

FEBRUARY 27, 2012

That system may treat sentient animals like car parts, ruin antibiotics we need for human medicine, and destroy rural communities by polluting our air and water, but at least it’s “efficient” (a word Mr. Hurst hammers three times). BOBBIE MULLINS Norfolk, Va., They’re about protecting a system that produces cheap food.

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New York Times New York Gestation Crates Gestation 40

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 17, 2014

But the tenets of the North American Model were developed in the 19th century, when wildlife ethics and science were a mere glimmer of what we understand today. ” This leads to obvious conflicts with the NAMWC prohibition against the frivolous killing and waste of wildlife. required to determine those catch limits.

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Wildlife Coyotes Wolves Hunters 255

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 29, 2014

If you’re feeling fearful or ignorant, well, I can recommend vox.com’s coverage (as in most things), but you could also do worse that picking up Spillover – Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic by David Quammen. The disease had killed a tourist like ourselves.

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Humane Animal Ukraine Africa 206

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 17, 2015

The potpourri covers some interesting bird related science of the last few weeks, and the promise is this: I’ll get to that other stuff soon, I promise! From Science Daily : Crows have the brain power to solve higher-order, relational-matching tasks, and they can do so spontaneously, according to new research.

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Science Iraq Oregon Charlotte 173

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 14, 2015

What wasn’t publicised at the time, but the scientist later both admitted and owned, is that the kingfisher was then killed and collected for scientific reasons. If you want to know why most scientists support collecting this piece in Science explains it better than I can. New Zealand Bitterns. Bush Wrens.

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Collecting Solomon Islands New Zealand Fiji 272

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 28, 2015

No doubt he reads that bio and goes “It’s good, but what I really want to do is kill some f ing birds” Linda doesn’t waste any time in deciding which camp Chris belongs to. How it is being affected by human intrusions? Science doesn’t work that way! Science Schmience. Who its predators were?

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Collecting Papua New Guinea Science Guinea 219

10,000 Birds

JULY 10, 2012

More than 150 bird species are known to have become extinct over the past 500 years, and many more are estimated to have been driven to extinction before they became known to science. An adult (left) and subadult (right) White-backed Vulture with full crops after feeding on the remains of a Lion kill, Ndutu, Tanzania by Adam Riley.

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Endangered Species Species Morocco South Africa 238

10,000 Birds

JUNE 6, 2023

It was the same day George Floyd was killed. Eight years later, Christian Cooper birding Central Park became a very different kind of media image: the black man falsely accused by a white woman of threatening her life after asking her to leash her dog in the Ramble, an area where unleashed dogs are not allowed. I remember that day.

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Emotional Birds Nepal Minneapolis 230

10,000 Birds

APRIL 2, 2024

The tiercels (young Peregrines) must deal with Golden Eagles, Ravens, adult Peregrines, and foxes; they must also learn to navigate the skies and make their own kills, luckily these skills appear to be innately learned. Coyotes took carrion from young Condors and then killed the weakest ones. It’s not easy.

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California Condor Falcons California Coyotes 188

10,000 Birds

MARCH 14, 2011

March 14, 2011 Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Jon Gassett, Commissioner One Sportsman’s Lane Frankfort, Kentucky 40601 Dear Mr. Gassett, I am a writer, naturalist and artist with a special interest in human/bird interactions. Kills in Canada, Alaska and Mexico are not included in the count.

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2011 Kentucky Tennessee Hunting 263

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 13, 2023

The scientific species name stricklandii commemorates Hugh Edwin Strickland (1811-1853), a British geologist, zoologist, and the coordinator of the Strickland Code, a code of nomenclature for taxonomic classification prepared by a committee of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, first published in 1842 ( source ).

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Sri Lanka Taiwan Birds Cats 246

10,000 Birds

JULY 5, 2022

I put it in a small box for several hours, where it appeared to recover, but studies have shown that internal injuries from a strike usually kill the bird. Dead birds are a part of the life of a birder, a feeder of birds, and of bird science. The more glass, the more bird kills. ©2012 Donna L. Did the model work?

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New York City Illinois Science Killing 264

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 9, 2014

We immediately get a sense of the pigeons’ abundance, beauty, and danger to human activity. She portrays humans merged with Passenger Pigeons; the images are then framed to look like 19th century calling cards. This bit of science is a nice final counterpoint to an account that has emphasized art, history, and literature.

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2014 Killing Michigan Kentucky 195

10,000 Birds

MAY 16, 2018

I am a human being, so I am entitled to, and I do, say that the starling is an ugly bird. Thomas acknowledges that the Anthropocene epoch, the age of humans, is bringing a sixth great extinction, but that, by itself, is not something he much mourns. Prum, Doubleday). What’s magic about 1970? What, for that matter, is normal?

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Humane Species North America illegal 143

10,000 Birds

MARCH 13, 2012

After one 3 year stint, they left with 131,405 specimens including birds, mammals, reptiles, plants and even human remains (which were only recently repatriated for burial in Africa!) The famous Verreaux family who made several expeditions into the province through the 1820’s and 1830’s procuring specimens for rich collectors.

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Mozambique South Africa Africa Collecting 245

Animal Person

MARCH 17, 2009

Environmentalists recognize the meat industry as extremely ecodestructive – including fish, dairy, eggs, feed crops with their massive use of water & topsoil and toxic runoff killing rivers and oceans, and the killing of billions of free-living animals to protect farmed animals and feed crops.

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Meat Industry Meat Industry Responsible Policies 100

10,000 Birds

JULY 2, 2024

Shorebird identification takes time and is often stressful, there’s heat glare and bugs and drones and dogs and humans. It’s a book that counterpoints and combines facts and personal experiences, science-based and eloquent writing styles, textual description and visual information, a history of abundance and an uncertain future.

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North America America 2006 Delaware 264

10,000 Birds

MARCH 20, 2011

What could motivate gunmen (I cannot call them hunters) in two states to deliberately kill North America’s tallest and most critically endangered bird? My friend Vickie Henderson , who has some serious long-range vision, looked at the science behind Tennessee’s crane hunting proposal and found it badly wanting. Here’s the petition.

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2011 Hunting Kentucky Hunters 244

10,000 Birds

MARCH 14, 2022

These two islands are about halfway between the tip of South Africa and Antarctica in the Subantarctic Indian Ocean, have had relatively few human visitors, and are primarily inhabited with some of the rarest seabirds in the world and a smaller number of mammals.

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South Africa Mice Albatross Africa 264

10,000 Birds

APRIL 29, 2024

In what might nowadays be regarded as a slightly weird scientific practice, after meeting naturalist Daniel Gottlieb Messerschmidt, he married Messerschmidt’s widow after his death and got notes from Messerschmidt’s Siberia travels from her that had not been handed over to the Imperial Academy of Sciences.

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Eagles Sea Lions Bears Russia 146

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 21, 2018

Here are a few other things regular readers of this site may be familiar with: The bird science journal “The Condor,” the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at UC Berkeley, the concept of “niche,” and the system for making field observations of species known as the “Grinnell System.”

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2018 Science Humane Species 122

Animal Ethics

NOVEMBER 24, 2009

Farm animals also benefit from the humane farming movement, even if the animal welfare changes it effects are not all that we should hope and work for. Go vegan, go vegetarian, go humane or just eat less meat. To the Editor: Soon after I read Gary Steiner’s article, my wife asked me to kill a spider, which I did. Lawrence S.

New York Times 40

New York Times New York Vegan Vegetarian 40

Animal Ethics

JANUARY 16, 2010

Do you eat the human flesh served to you by your hosts? What if it's customary to allow guests to torture or kill one of the tribe? In other words, there are moral limits to science, as to law. When I do cook it (which is maybe once every two weeks), I try to be a responsible as possible. And why limit it to food?

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Vegetarian Lamb Animal Welfare Meat 40

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 28, 2015

Without further ado, here are our Best Birds of the Year for 2015… Jochen makes us all jealous with a bird that most of us would kill to see. “Spooked” is a bit of a strong word as I was very likely the first human this bird had ever seen and it stuck around for quite a while merely five metres away from me.

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2015 Costa Rica Birds Sparrows 190

10,000 Birds

JULY 25, 2022

Gisela Kaplan has written a book about the species, and how they seem unperturbed by humans: “It’s one of their most successful defense strategies. Of course, if science is not for you, you can also look for the Spiritual Meaning of Willie Wagtail (“Unlock the amazing secrets of this spiritual symbol”) here.

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Australia Birds Mountain Goats Ducks 264

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 17, 2011

The result might be that the cell recognizes itself as messed up and kills itself, or some other cell does it in, or in many cases, the cell will inappropriately produce a chemical that will have a negative effect elsewhere. It is a very nice bit of science. Corey has mentioned the Chernobyl study before.

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Mammals Birds Cooking Fish 267

10,000 Birds

JUNE 26, 2018

The causes were the usual reasons for island extinction—deforestation by both humans and invasive plants that crowded out native plants, hunting, and invasive rats, mongoose, monkeys, and, of course, feral cats. Is it any wonder that Pink Pigeons were on the brink of extinction when humans intervened? I know, that’s harsh.

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Mauritius Stud Zoos Eggs 131

Critter News

JULY 7, 2009

Welfare groups are calling for an urgent public debate on animal testing amid claims millions of creatures are being killed or maimed every year in Australia in the name of science.

Medical Research 100

Medical Research Animal Animal Research Medical 100

Animal Person

JUNE 8, 2009

For those who didn't read the five-part Slate series " Pepper, the stolen dog who changed American science " by Daniel Engber , I recommend it for the history, but also for the misconceptions and assumptions that you might want to discuss on the Facebook discussion about the series. It "guarantees humane treatment?" Maybe on paper.

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Animal Welfare Monkeys Animal Welfare Act Vivisection 100

10,000 Birds

JULY 4, 2023

Jennifer Ackerman points out in the introduction to What the Owl Knows: The New Science of the World’s Most Enigmatic Birds , that we don’t know much, but that very soon we may know a lot more. What the Owl Knows: The New Science of the World’s Most Enigmatic Birds is a joyous, fascinating read.

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Owls Science Barn Owls Penguins 246

10,000 Birds

APRIL 7, 2015

None fly, most are curious and social, which probably contributes to our cultural perception of penguins as one step away from human. Science and Conservation , the second section, presents two-page summaries of the diverse research being done around the world about penguins. Some are cute, some are dignified (and royal!).

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Penguins New Zealand South Africa Albatross 246