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TWO GROUPS. “There is no evidence of any significant interchange of House Sparrows between farmland and urban populations, and it is almost certain that the factors for the declines are largely unrelated.” https://www.britishbirds.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/article_files/V96/V96_N09/V96_N09_P439_446_A004.pdf View in LinkedIn

URBAN IMPACT. “In contrast, a gradual decline in urban centres continued, with little change for 50 years from the 1930s, before the urban population went into free-fall in the late 1980s or early 1990s. A gradual and continuing decline is probably also taking place in suburbs and small towns, though it has not yet become catastrophic.” https://www.britishbirds.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/article_files/V96/V96_N09/V96_N09_P439_446_A004.pdf View in LinkedIn

TWO DYNAMICS. “The situation in farmland appears to be quite distinct from that in urban centres. A major decline in farmland began in the late 1970s, but after a decrease of about 60% the population had stabilised by about 1995.” https://www.britishbirds.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/article_files/V96/V96_N09/V96_N09_P439_446_A004.pdf View in LinkedIn

URBAN SPARROWS. “Subsequently, a gradual decline from 1945 to 1975 is followed by a rapid decline from about 1990/91 to 2001.” https://www.britishbirds.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/article_files/V96/V96_N09/V96_N09_P439_446_A004.pdf View in LinkedIn

URBAN REASONS. “A steep decline in the 1920s was caused by the replacement of the horse with the internal combustion engine and the consequent loss of food to House Sparrows, in the form of spillage from nosebags and undigested seed in horse droppings.” https://www.britishbirds.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/article_files/V96/V96_N09/V96_N09_P439_446_A004.pdf View in LinkedIn

Rook at this mess: French park trains crows to pick up litter https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/11/rook-at-this-mess-french-park-trains-crows-to-pick-up-litter?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other View in LinkedIn

SO ENDS this vignette on the once common sparrow and its demise in numerous cultures. Between being human-dependent, and having a critical threshold for colony size, the sparrow collapse has suffered from these two factors. What is most dramatic is how such a common bird can collapse so quickly in so many places. It surely is a canary for mankind. View in LinkedIn

Caribbean island bans plastic and Styrofoam https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/dominica-plastic-ban/index.html View in LinkedIn

THE ALLEE EFFECT, popularized in the memorable book, The Moth Snowstorm by Michael McCarthy describes how social bird colonies like sparrows will collapse when the population falls below a certain threshold, and has contributed to the drastic loss of sparrow populations. https://lnkd.in/dp2SYmj View in LinkedIn

Jurors give $289 million to a man they say got cancer from Monsanto's Roundup https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/10/health/monsanto-johnson-trial-verdict/index.html View in LinkedIn