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Humans Not Solely To Blame For Passenger Pigeon Extinction
sciencehabit (1205606) writes When the last passenger pigeon died at a zoo in 1914, the species became a cautionary tale of the dramatic impact humans can have on the world. But a new study finds that the bird experienced multiple population booms and crashes over the million years before its final demise. The sensitivity of the population to natural fluctuations, the authors argue, could have been what made it so vulnerable to extinction.
Yep, they survived multiple population crashes for a million years.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
In discussion about potentially cloning passenger pigeons, there were concerns that the species needed huge flocks. As a result, there were concerns that cloning just a few wouldn't be enough to bring back the species.
Since this study showed that passenger pigeons had population crashes before and came back, this should alleviate the flock size concerns.
(T>t && O(n)--) == sqrt(666)
No.
Humans poisoned the crap out of it with absolutely complete regard for the future of the species. Passenger Pigeons were regarded as a menace by early settlers, like locust. And like locust, they were eliminated. Yes, Passenger Pigeons were hunted, and yes, the last few thousand were likely killed by hunters. But the first 100,000,000 million were poisoned or had their trees cut down.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
Well sed.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Wooly mammoths? Can you imagine those beasts trampling down your fields? Because you don't think that your puny fences would keep them reined in, do you? And the shedding everywhere!
You young'uns have NO idea what the paleolithic time was like! Now get offa my steppe!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Passenger pigeons had a unique roosting and nesting technique. They formed huge flocks in trees near a food source and stayed there while raising their young. When market hunters found a roost they would wait until night when the tree was full of birds and blast away with shotguns, killing thousands and destroying the nests. As the population declined there were fewer and fewer of those mass nesting sites, but when one was found it was eliminated. Eventually there weren't enough birds to form a proper colony and they couldn't nest anymore.
You have it backwards, the media spins the results of science for percieved political gain, not the other way around. There is absolutely nothing political about the claim that other factors may have played a part in their extinction.
As to the organic food study: Nutrition may not be "the point" in your mind, but there were certainly plenty of charlatans promoting it, there's even a 1970's clip on YT somewhere with Feynman himself having a go at the 'unscientific' claims of better nutrition from organically grow crops. The nutritional study injected facts into a factual vacum, even if nobody was interested in the study it is still worthy of publication. Nobody denies the health benfits of washing the copper-sulphate off your industrially grown tomatos before eating them (except maybe the pesticide company), but the study presented strong evidence that a tomato is a tomato no matter where it obtains the atoms that constitute it's genetically programmed flesh.
If you're finding politics and ideology in evidence based statement like either of those studies, it's not because the scientists put it there, you did that yourself while you were looking for reasons to reject the findings.
Disclaimer: I've been a "greenie" since the 70's, if the above findings are somehow an inconviennce to green politics then so be it, I want my government to formulate laws and policies that respect evidence, and adapt when contrary evidence is found. I want our politicins to be more like our scientists and engineers, get off their ideological high horses and get on with the job.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
There are not many scenario. You always survive population boom and crash until the last crash which you do not survive, interspersed with maybe a few stable periods. Omnes vulnerant, ultima necat.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
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