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Birding Ruili, Yunnan

10,000 Birds

When I last visited the town almost 10 years ago, it had a Wild West feel, and Wikipedia claims that it is “an important location for trade with Myanmar, in both legal and illegal goods and services” but it seemed pretty tame to me this time. Some research topics seem a bit bizarre to me.

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A Connecticut Yankee Goes to Washington: Senator George P. McLean, Birdman of the Senate

10,000 Birds

Plume hunting raged supreme 150 years ago, when egret feathers were part of a worldwide trade in feathers and other bird parts, used for women’s hats and other articles of clothing (but mostly hats), delighting the upper classes and practically wiping out bird species. ©2023, Donna L.

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15 Australian Birds (Episode 4)

10,000 Birds

“A reading of recent research shows that Australian birds are more likely than most to eat sweet foods, live in complex societies, lead long lives, attack other birds, and be intelligent and loud.” ” (Tim Low, “Where Song Began”). While this may sound attractive at first, it also covers highly immoral behavior.

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Birding Mount Kinabalu, Sabah, Borneo

10,000 Birds

While it is laudable to publish a paper about the threat to laughingthrushes (including this) by the bird trade, I still feel that lame-joke titles such as “Nothing to laugh about – the ongoing illegal trade in laughingthrushes ( Garrulax species) in the bird markets of Java, Indonesia” should be avoided.

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The Falcon Thief: A Book Review

10,000 Birds

Author Joshua Hammer, who previously wrote about a different type of real-life-unexpected-caper in The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu , read about Lendrum in the Times of London in 2017, realized the possibilities, did the research. wrote a lengthy article in Outside magazine (Jan. 2019), and now this book. Author Joshua Hammer.

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I Remember Elephants

10,000 Birds

The Great Elephant Census found that populations of Savanna Elephants Loxodonta africana have fallen by 30% between 2007 and 2014 (around 144,000 animals poached or population shrunk at a rate of 8% a year, a level higher than their reproduction rate; source https://peerj.com/articles/2354.pdf One may say so.

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Hornbills of Sabah

10,000 Birds

In fact, a recent article in the Economist on Singapore’s rewilding states “The oriental pied hornbill (pictured), with its extraordinary ivory casque, had been locally extinct for a century. Other threats arise from illegal logging, hunting for bushmeat, and other body parts (feathers, beak, etc.)