Posted by:
SL Cabbie
(
)
Date: October 27, 2016 01:03PM
This one's getting really close to verböten politics, but I'll chime in...
Mostly I'm agreeing with what "ifcouldhie" is saying... Sites like the one linked are strictly Koch and Koch-clone operations, and that "Climategate" header gives me gas.
In my mild-mannered secret identity, I've been active in a couple of wildlife conservancy groups (alas, in these days of "ridesharing" the tip jar ain't what it used to be; I wish I could give more). Here are some indisputable horrors that are occurring on our watch:
Songbirds:
https://web.stanford.edu/group/stanfordbirds/text/essays/Eastern_Songbirds.html>Since the end of World War II there has been a decline in forest songbird populations over much of the eastern United States. For example, in Rock Creek Park in the middle of Washington, D.C., populations of Red-eyed Vireos have dropped by 79 percent and Ovenbirds by 94 percent. Acadian Flycatchers, Yellow-throated Vireos, Black-and-white Warblers, and Hooded Warblers have disappeared entirely. The decline has not been uniform for all species; the Acadian Flycatcher and others that migrate long distances to tropical America have suffered more than residents or those like robins and towhees that can overwinter in the southern United States. Nor has the decline been equal in all types of forest; the loss of species from woodlots and small forest tracts exceeds the loss from large stretches of forest such as those of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
>One suspected cause is, quite naturally, the rapid destruction of tropical forests where many migrants overwinter. Perhaps deforestation in Mexico, Costa Rica, and Jamaica, for instance, is responsible for the decline of some species, such as the Worm-eating Warbler. But in the last century about half of the forest breeding habitat of that species in eastern North America was destroyed, while there was relatively much less loss of tropical forests in that period. The result may well have been a surplus of wintering habitat. More recent deforestation has wiped out on the order of half of the tropical forests, and perhaps has just about restored the balance between available breeding and wintering habitat.
>
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/06/130621-threats-against-birds-cats-wind-turbines-climate-change-habitat-loss-science-united-states/Monarch Butterflies:
http://www.pri.org/stories/2016-05-22/solving-monarch-butterflys-decline-will-take-more-just-milkweedThose are just some "charismatic species"; the numbers for amphibians are far worse, period. But hey, frogs are icky slimy critters...