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Noxious: Montana’s Battle With Spotted Knapweed, and What Birders Can Do

10,000 Birds

Thirteen different insects have been introduced into Montana in their turn as biological controls for knapweeds, from weevils that attack the roots to flies that lay eggs in the seed-heads. Since then, it has been pulled and plucked, sprayed and dusted, mowed and set on fire. And yet it persists. The impact of knapweed on Montana’s economy.

Montana 163
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Questionable Practices at the Calgary Zoo

Critter News

Incidents include a hippo who died in transport from Denver and a Turkmenian markhor, a species of wild goat, hung itself at the zoo after becoming trapped by a rope. In April 2009, unseasonably cold weather froze two whopping crane eggs. The fatality is one in a string of animal deaths in recent years.

Zoos 100
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Invasive species in Australia

10,000 Birds

We have seen them on remote beaches hunting shorebirds and taking their eggs and they have been responsible for much of the egg loss in breeding Pied Oystercatchers along the Broome coast. Feral cat predation on Pied Oystercatcher eggs. They are incredibly cunning and not easily trapped.

Australia 157
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Rare Birds: The Extraordinary Tale of the Bermuda Petrel and the Man Who Brought It Back from Extinction–A Review

10,000 Birds

This is how he ended up living on Nonsuch, an island on which every tree had been felled, all grass eaten by goats, which had formerly been home to a yellow fever hospital and a reform school. Wingate decided that the birds needed Bermuda’s ecology as it was 300 years ago, and he was going to create it for them.

Birds 164
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The Kirtland’s Warbler: The Story of a Bird’s Fight Against Extinction and the People Who Saved It: A Book Review

10,000 Birds

A nest wasn’t found until 1903, which set off a craze for Kirtland’s Warbler skins, nests, and eggs. The material on Bermuda is particularly engrossing, illustrating what it is like to be a researcher in a remote area of the seemingly-glamorous Bahamas, studying birds and counting berries at sites called the Goat Farm and Dead Dog Road.

Michigan 221
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15 Australian Birds (Episode 4)

10,000 Birds

When these birds breed, this can lead to highly cringeworthy announcements, for example from Adelaide Zoo : “We have egg-citing news!” Of course, when speaking of the devil, it is hard for me not to mention the song “The best ever death metal band from Denton” by The Mountain Goats.

Birds 217
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Africa’s endangered species

10,000 Birds

This species prefers wetlands and its numbers have been decimated due to a combination of habitat destruction caused by human population growth and illegal removal of birds and eggs from the wild for the pet and zoo trade. This plain used to be little affected by humans, being grazed by just a few cattle, goats and camels.