Posted on 12/28/2020 11:25:58 AM PST by SJackson
The mass die-off of thousands of songbirds in south-western US was caused by long-term starvation, made worse by unseasonably cold weather probably linked to the climate crisis, scientists have said.
Flycatchers, swallows and warblers were among the migratory birds “falling out of the sky” in September, with carcasses found in New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, Arizona and Nebraska. A USGS National Wildlife Health Center necropsy has found 80% of specimens showed typical signs of starvation.
Muscles controlling the birds’ wings were severely shrunken, blood was found in their intestinal tract and they had kidney failure as well as an overall loss of body fat. The remaining 20% were not in good enough condition to carry out proper tests. Nearly 10,000 dead birds were reported to the wildlife mortality database by citizens, and previous estimates suggest hundreds of thousands may have died.
Specimens including more than 250 Violet-green swallows and 35 Wilson’s Warblers, collected along the Rio Grande in Velarde, New Mexico, in September. Some of the dead birds, including more than 250 Violet-green swallows and 35 Wilson’s Warblers, collected along the Rio Grande in Velarde, New Mexico, in September. Photograph: Jenna McCullough/University of New Mexico
“It looks like the immediate cause of death in these birds was emaciation as a result of starvation,” said Jonathan Sleeman, director of the USGS National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wisconsin, which received 170 bird carcasses and did necropsies on 40 of them. “It’s really hard to attribute direct causation, but given the close correlation of the weather event with the death of these birds, we think that either the weather event forced these birds to migrate prior to being ready, or maybe impacted their access to food sources during their migration.”
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Trump’s border wall?
Reminds me of all of the human deaths in 2020 being due to the corona virus.
It's how the Left thinks. They can't help themselves.
Windmills and solar panels. Windmills kill ~500,000 a year....solar panels create massive heat reflected, killing birds that fly into range of the heat. Numbers of birds killed aren’t aggregated, but solar panels do kill birds.
Climate Law: Whatever can be blamed on Climate Change will be.
Maybe they can blame it on Covid-19, which less people outside means less food for birds. Or they did not wear masks and caught the bug themselves.
We need more CO2. More plants, more bugs = more bird food. Problem solved.
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