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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. I was going to have something for you this month about the dinosaur-bird thing, but I never got to it.
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. Science doesn’t work that way! Describing the position that Linda took with regards to the validity of the science as dishonest may have been unfair. Science Schmience. Conservation Animal Rights collecting birds conservation biology science
10,000 Birds
JULY 27, 2016
These findings, published in The Condor , draw from citizen science efforts coordinated by scientists from the University of Alberta and Environment Canada. Considering that the average home experiences one to a few collisions each year, and given the sheer number of residences, the extrapolated effect on bird fatalities may be vast, perhaps dwarfing the number of birds killed by skyscrapers and large office buildings.
Animal Person
JUNE 2, 2009
Pepper, the stolen dog who changed American science ," thankfully wasn't called Pepper, the stolen dog that changed American science," so that was an encouraging sign. A Dalmatian, stolen and sold for research, she was likely terrified and probably in enormous pain when she was killed, a couple of weeks after she was taken. I look forward, with a tad of trepidation, to the part about Pepper being a turning point in science.
Critter News
OCTOBER 17, 2008
Sarah Palin, who I am sure reads the latest science journals when she isn't perusing the latest issue of the Economist, doesn't believe beluga whales are declining. Or maybe there isn't enough money in killing off the rest. Fortunately, even the Bush Administration thinks they are. Either way, I'm glad that even the people that work for the worst president ever recognize that there is a problem.
Critter News
APRIL 18, 2010
According to PCRM, the schools are Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, and the University of Tennessee College of Medicine, Chattanooga campus. Harvard and Yale don't see the need to use (or kill) animals, so why do those three schools still do it? But we all have to change our beliefs when the science changes," Dr. Pippin told me.
Critter News
OCTOBER 25, 2010
In support of National Primate Liberation Week, the Portland Animal Defense League hung a banner that read "OHSU: Stop Killing Monkeys Now!" Stop Animal Exploitation Now, an Ohio-based animal rights group, recently ranked the lab at Oregon Health & Science University as the nation's sixth worst animal lab out of 44 others. From Oregonlive.
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. Every hour of Clayton's existence has been spent, and will continue to be spent, in the service of basic science. Isn't it better for science, and more humane, to use just one animal?
10,000 Birds
NOVEMBER 13, 2020
In the midst of a global pandemic, medical professionals have been heralded as heroes, with some even rising to the status of pop culture icons – even as some supposedly advanced nations have been plummeting into the depths of anti-science superstition lately.
Critter News
AUGUST 12, 2009
Understand this: This will continue until you sever all ties with Huntingdon Life Sciences. If you think it's fun killing animals in your own forest in Austria and bring them to your hunting estate, we will destroy it. ALF activists burned the hunting lodge of Novartis CEO Daniel Vasella.
10,000 Birds
AUGUST 22, 2014
The USFWS (along with another federal agency) is facing a lawsuit that blames solar-power plants for killing endangered Yuma Clapper Rails and other birds. Science! This week in birding news has it all covered. Er, sort of. To wit: As if beach-nesting birds don’t have enough problems , along comes a new scourge: nudists. Brings a new meaning to the term “shake your tail feathers” !
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. In my opinion, if we can send a man to the moon and create weapons to kill everything on the planet, if we can shove massive computing power into tiny chips and reattach human organs, we can certainly develop the means of replacing animal testing 100 percent of the time.
10,000 Birds
JANUARY 27, 2014
So much for not killing the messenger. National Geographic offers a science-driven analysis of the incident , which is apparently just a case of predators being, well, predators. This past weekend at the Vatican, Pope Francis delivered an annual address appealing for global peace. With the help of two children, he released two all-white doves. To Christians, the birds represent peace, but to a gull and a crow, the birds represented lunch. Image by Gregorio Borgia/AP).
4 The Love Of Animals
JULY 31, 2010
Kitten Rescue’s goal is to help Los Angeles become a no-kill city. Event partners and sponsors include: PETCO, Central Life Sciences, Natural Balance, Febreze and Dyson. Kitten Rescue is a wonderful animal rescue organization! Founded in 1997, it has become one of the largest animal rescue groups in Los Angeles. They are non-profit, and they are totally volunteer run! They have had truly great success in finding loving new homes for unwanted cats and kittens.
10,000 Birds
MARCH 14, 2022
These have been used by meteorologists, technicians, and researchers who spend about 13 months on the island at a time researching a variety of sciences.
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. I can understand why some people are conflicted, but the value to science of the collections is immense.
10,000 Birds
AUGUST 9, 2018
According to a Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences study, human-induced climate change has doubled the area affected by forest fires in the western U.S. Some animals are injured and killed by wildfires. A fire might kill weak birds or, depending on the time of year, claim nestlings. References: 1 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The photo above shows the beginning of the Carr Fire east of Redding with the Sundial Bridge in the foreground.
10,000 Birds
FEBRUARY 15, 2013
The single greatest challenge facing any book of science writing is balance. Otherwise, there would be no science writing, everyone would just go straight to the journals. They are right, I think, in saying it is perverse that we can kill crows but not coddle them. That issue aside, though, this is a fascinating book which will engage not just birders, but most people who have any interest in nature or the science of the mind.
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. New figures published by the NSW government's advisory body, the Animal Research Review Panel, show the number of animals killed in NSW experiments rose by more than 1,000 to 8,813 during 2006-2007. It's good to know that these issues are being fought in places other than just the US and the UK.
10,000 Birds
SEPTEMBER 17, 2013
Each year, millions are injured or killed when they slam into the sides of glass-sheathed buildings that reflect the sky. The latest edition of Science News delves into the work of scientists studying this problem. Or perhaps I should say “illusive.” ” That’s because an American architecture firm is planning what’s billed as the “world’s first invisible building” in South Korea.
10,000 Birds
DECEMBER 22, 2019
It’s a matter of personal preference: neither does every reader like, say, science fiction, or the writing of Henry James, or romance novels. But I insisted he try the blood and violence guy, and he humored me, only to send me, later, a longish email, pointing out the flaws in my judgment and in the book and the author, and closing with this: “Since I didn’t care for any of his characters, I really didn’t care who killed whom.”.
10,000 Birds
AUGUST 7, 2013
The New Zealand Fantail was once placed with the Grey Fantail of Australia, but are now treated as separate, because of science. This is possibly because of the story of the Maori hero Maui, who was trying to sneak up on the goddess of night and death, Hinenuitepo, in order to kill her and end death. The fantail, one of his companions, laughed, causing her to wake and kill Maui (the story is worth reading in full ).
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. Dr. David Lavigne, Science Advisor to the International Fund for Animal Welfare, co-authored Gaining Ground: In Pursuit of Ecological Sustainability 5.
10,000 Birds
MAY 23, 2012
You could raise an eyebrow that at a time of cuts and austerity measures across a range of environment services and departments to be able to find £375k in support of a non-native species that is reared specifically to be killed anyway is a little astonishing. Skimming through the myriad of posts in my blog reader yesterday I came across a post from the ever-watchful guys at the Raptor Persecution Scotland blog that left me cold with anger.
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.” We expect climate change to have a mostly negative effect on natural habitats, at least short and medium term. Yes, there has “always” been climate change.
10,000 Birds
OCTOBER 29, 2014
Aficionados of natural history writing should recognise the author as that of the Song of the Dodo , the popular science book about biogeography and conservation that to me rates as one the finest popular science books ever written. The disease had killed a tourist like ourselves. It’s six weeks to the day till I go to Africa, and of late conversations about the subject have taken a reliable and predictable detour. “Aren’t I worried about Ebola?”
Animal Ethics
FEBRUARY 27, 2012
Mr. Hurst flippantly questions the ability to measure a pig’s happiness, but sound science—not to mention common sense—clearly establishes that mother pigs locked in gestation crates with so little space that they cannot turn around for most of their lives do indeed suffer. To the Editor: Re “ Don’t Presume to Know a Pig’s Mind ” (Op-Ed, Feb. 20): Blake Hurst, a former hog farmer and president of the Missouri Farm Bureau, cautions that “we can’t ask the pigs what they think.”
Animal Ethics
JULY 28, 2008
Davis, an emeritus professor of animal science at Oregon State University, says the horses “damage” the environment. Predator control (yet more killing by our government in the service of ranchers) is to blame for any overpopulation of herbivores. To the Editor: Re “ Mustangs Stir a Debate on Thinning the Herd ” (front page, July 20): The Bureau of Land Management is charged with protecting wild horses and burros on the Western rangelands.
10,000 Birds
SEPTEMBER 13, 2018
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. I particularly recommend this book to students minoring in biology, ecology, environmental and veterinary sciences: Putnam’s clearly written and easy to understand style is sure to explain the complex concepts without relying on hard to decipher terminology. Speckled Woods are found through most of Palearctic.
10,000 Birds
MARCH 8, 2013
And so, injunctions were granted and lifted, granted and lifted, over the course of more than a decade; during one busy period in 1982, the official stance on killing the goats changed five times in two months. Also, they were infested by a species of ear mite unknown to science. I’ve written on this topic before , but I just can’t get it out of my head.
Animal Ethics
FEBRUARY 5, 2010
Moreover, we are prone to extrapolate; extrapolation was always intrinsic to induction, that primitive propensity that is at the root of all science. Extrapolation in science, however, is under the welcome restraint of stubborn fact: failures of prediction. As regards capricious killing, one hopes so; but what of vivisection, and of the eating of red meat? There remains the awkward matter of a conflict of ultimate values within the individual.
Animal Ethics
JANUARY 16, 2010
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 Keith: As a historian or even an anthropologist, one could make the argument that being a vegetarian limits one's ability to understand other cultures. I, like you, am not a complete vegetarian. In fact, my diet is worse, but I do justify my eating habits.
Animal Ethics
NOVEMBER 24, 2009
To the Editor: Soon after I read Gary Steiner’s article, my wife asked me to kill a spider, which I did. We kill so many living creatures when we build a house, construct a road, drive down that road or just walk on a path. When we plant and harvest crops that vegans would find acceptable to eat, many animals are killed and their habitats are destroyed. But even then if we were to survive we would have to kill some animals in self-defense.
10,000 Birds
MAY 16, 2018
Now, there are still 10 million of them there but, due in part to a population dip after 1970, it is, in the reign of the second Elizabeth, illegal to kill them intentionally. that “beauty happens” and that evolution is often a result of female preferences, rather than “survival of the fittest”) to humans that he seems to veer off (as he admits) into speculation, rather than proven science. • Inheritors of the Earth: How Nature is Thriving in an Age of Extinction (Chris D.
10,000 Birds
SEPTEMBER 9, 2014
This bit of science is a nice final counterpoint to an account that has emphasized art, history, and literature. Fuller has not preached about the evils of the human practices that killed and dislocated the Passenger Pigeon; he hasn’t moaned and groaned or sentimentalized. He effectively brings his point across by presenting facts and images and a little bit of hard science. In both countries, birds have been killed for reasons of food, commerce, and sport.
Animal Ethics
JANUARY 20, 2008
Ethical vegetarianism is the thesis that killing and eating animals is morally wrong whenever equally nutritious plant-based alternatives are available. Similarly, most people also agree that: (2) It is wrong to kill a conscious sentient animal for no good reason. Nor ought we kill them without reason. 8) The argument for the immorality of eating meat continues with two additional, undeniable premises: (3) The animals that become that meat are killed.
10,000 Birds
OCTOBER 20, 2011
Then, as often happens, a PhD student (one of mine) by the name of Rusty Low came along and proved that the Holocene was full of all sorts of rapid climate change thus killing my beautiful hypothesis with a bunch of ugly facts. But still, there is variation in variation and how rapid climate change occurs can matter, as demonstrated in a paper just published in Science: The Influence of Late Quaternary Climate-Change Velocity on Species Endemism.
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. Currently, I do not believe that killing an animal is prima facie morally wrong. Hi there, I'm Jonathan.
10,000 Birds
JUNE 26, 2018
Nonprofit organizations, science, and the best intentions in the world came to the rescue with a captive breeding program, and we now have over 400 Pink Pigeons living in Mauritius, the nearby island of Ile aux Aigrettes, and the zoos hosting the breeding program, including the Bronx Zoo. A foot deep by some accounts, it killed what life was left in the forest. It was the Pink Pigeons (Nesoenas mayeri) that got me thinking.
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.
10,000 Birds
AUGUST 10, 2018
There’s always a chance that we could ingest something bad for us, something that might even kill us – a peril we face anytime we swallow anything, in fact. ” Long before the science and physiology of taste were formally understood, brewers knew to avoid jarring combinations of sour and bitter flavors that signal poisons to our brains. Drinking is an act of risk and vulnerability, though it’s such an everyday part of our existence that no one thinks of it that way.
10,000 Birds
AUGUST 6, 2012
This exhibit has been making the rounds of science museums, and if comes to your area I highly recommend it, not just for kids. If you don’t live near a science museum, then read this chapter. The reasons are many–habitat destruction, over-exploitation of frogs for meat, pollution, alien predators, climate change, and the chytrid fungus epidemic, a recently discovered threat that is killing frogs all over the world and which is not totally understood yet. “Peek!” Plunk.
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. By disguising anthropomorphic (in other words, pre-scientific) ways of thinking as science, Wise rediscovers the enchanted world of childhood, in which animals live as Beatrix Potter describes them, in an Eden where “every prospect pleases, and only man is vile.”
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