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Cat Wars: The Devastating Consequences of a Cuddly Killer

10,000 Birds

Agonizing quandaries concerning invasive species are well-known to wildlife biologists. The relevant numbers involving cats, the people that cherish them, and the birds (and small mammals and reptiles) that they kill are all too large to mean much; you might as well use the funny word “gazillions.”

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Birding Hongbenghe, Yunnan

10,000 Birds

I saw two Pitta species at Hongbenghe, both among the slightly less glamourous among the pitta family: The Blue-naped Pitta … … and the closely related Rusty-naped Pitta. It seems that this is another species for which the standard phrase of scientists anywhere, “more research needed”, applies.

Birds 147
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Birding Shanghai in February 2022

10,000 Birds

The Common Pochard is listed as Vulnerable – not because it is particularly rare, but because of the rapid decline in its numbers (a decline of 50% within 10 years means a species is listed as Vulnerable – and a 50% loss in 10 years sounds quite dramatic and frightening indeed). And it does not even live in reeds.

Raccoons 229
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What is the State Bird of New Mexico?

10,000 Birds

Walking along a dirt track next to a prairie, my friend and I were on the look-out for different sparrow species when a large bird suddenly darted into the clearing. Rattlesnakes are fair game, as are other reptiles, scorpions, frogs, birds, and insects. I saw my first real Greater Roadrunner on a cold winter day in the Southwest.

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U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Proposes 2015 Expansion of Hunting and Fishing Opportunities on National Wildlife Refuges

10,000 Birds

The Refuge is now home to nearly 200 species of birds, over 50 species of mammals, 25 species of reptiles and amphibians, and a wide variety of insects, fish and plants. Note in this 2010 video, birders, birdwatching and kayakers are mentioned, not hunters. www.youtube.com/watch?v=sk_5pt9OTLA. v=sk_5pt9OTLA.

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Everglades Long-Legged Birds Feed Their Young To Alligators, Everything is Good.

10,000 Birds

For example, years ago, Eiton Tchenrov postulated that the wild progenitor of the domestic dog, some subspecies or another of wolf, could benefit from overlapping its breeding territory with human hunters. The humans tended to keep away a range of predators that might take the pups as a form of interference competition.

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Feral Cats Are An Invasive Species in North America (and elsewhere)

10,000 Birds

And for rodents and reptiles as well. This almost certainly can be argued to be true just on the basis of logic, because feral Cats are proficient hunters and are entirely out of ecological place. Also, feral Cats on islands seem to be a serious problem, causing the extirpation of some indigenous species.