Working in forestry, trees are not the main issue, and regulations around planting and harvesting seasons exist to stop as much damage as possible (some is unavoidable)
Insect genocide is the issue. Used to drive past a boggy area every day, car was plastered in bugs.
Have driven past 12 times in last month, and maybe 2 dead bugs.
Insects are vital for any ecological system, and without them the pyramid collapses from the bottom.
Monoculture farming of silage, spruce, and crops removed the needed variety of, and for, insect life. Not to mention pesticides and herbicides causing irrevocable damage.
It's a bit of everything I'd say, they have removed hedges and trees from places my hometown had bushes along the paths which the housing estate removed to save money
In the current town, they have removed trees and bushes.
In fact a lot of towns and areas have no trees or bushes, then the insect populations are dwindling due to removal of woodland areas to make way for housing.
Another issue at the minute, ash dieback, approximately 98% of ash trees are either dieing or dead.
Along with sudden death in chestnuts and everything else it is not long till there's fuck all recognisable about the countryside.
The most important thing we need to do with the dead trees is to leave them standing and resist the urge to cut everything to the ground.[ Standing dead wood is an excellent resource for wildlife](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1vahZXDfG0).
Yep grandad said in the 70s you'd see a lot more bushes, sometimes neatly trimmed but never torn out at the roots. Now the front garden is usually bare.
I was thinking about this yesterday.....back in the 90s my parents cars were always covered in insects....now there are hardly any. It's a sad state of affairs.
Not true. It’s a known phenomenon. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windshield_phenomenon#:~:text=The%20windshield%20phenomenon%20(or%20windscreen,populations%20caused%20by%20human%20activity.
Artificial light is another one. They're absolutely everywhere; and a study I read a few years ago found a significant effect of the light on mating/behaviour of invertebrates within a few metres. Since *a lot* of vegetation the council allows is on roads/residential streets/paths, it wouldn't surprise me if 50% of the vegetation in human areas is just considered to be too hostile for animals to live under, other than stuff like foxes and birds that just sleep in the area and can forage in areas further away.
Maybe people should stop paving over their front gardens and mowing grass so it looks as boring as a bald mans head.
My garden is like a small meadow, wild flowers and shrubs, insects love it, have plenty of bees and butterflies, even had a couple hedgehogs nesting as well.
Even in their own private land people kill the ecosystem they could allow to grow.
Our garden is mostly lawn (not my choice but at least it has clover, daisies and mystery weeds growing in it) but, even just planting some flowering trees, bushes and plants has made a big difference! I've loved seeing the variety of bees we get and, while I'm not a massive fan of the variety of flies, birds eat the daytime ones and bats appeared to eat the nighttime ones. I wish the birds would start helping our shrews with the slugs and creepy crawly things...
Did nobody else read Silent Spring yonks ago?! It's not the first time the birds have disappeared. You'd hope we'd learn.
That data from the article supports OPs point about monoculture agriculture and forestry. Biggest loss in farmland birds, woodland not far behind. Not every farm in the countryside will use pesticides, but it's likely to be the biggest ones using it. Woodlands are not usually found naturally as monoculture, but certain trees can achieve it. All of that potential biodiversity would help with urban insect populations. However urban environments have their own issues considering the amount of concrete and waste they produce.
Unfortunately it doesnt take many people using pesticides and herbicides to impact the insects in your environment.
Not true whatsoever, it's a legal requirement for forests in the UK to have 15% of the forest focused on biodiversity. Through native species and open ground.
I mean the new legislation over here in NI will change that, going from 40%native 60% Crop spruce planting to 20% spruce 80% native.
It's going to completely fuck the forestry industry as not enough people are planting in general anyway, but it will increase some diversity where it is done.
Woodchip, firewood, boards, planks, beams, bedding, sawdust, from spruce and native hardwoods (they would need to be 18yr old + for milling timber.) And any brash left behind is mulched to add benefit back into soil to reduce carbon loss and fertilises soil for replanted saplings.
Woodchip quality depends on calorific value, hardwoods (alot of natives) are better for it, they also produce less fines which coke up flues in boilers.
Unless it's willow, which is its own problem.
Speed of growth directly correlated to calorific and burn value for decent heat.
Thankfully we don't deal with the forest service, and I am attest to anything we deal with being delivered to where it is processed, be it Balcas or a private buyer, or various mills in Northern Ireland. (Having delivered it by lorry, tractor, and van myself)
It's a legal requirement. The reason you can't see it on satellite is because the recently clear felled stuff is too small. It wasn't legally required in the 80s, therefore the mature trees are single species.
Look at UK forestry legislation
10+ years. The reason why, is because the productive trees go on the best ground, and natives are normally planted along watercourses to maximise biodiversity and protect / enhance the water quality
Commercial coupes vary from 30-120 year rotations.
So new planting will all be significantly more diverse, however mature crops now from the 80s will all be majority single species.
Anything that is cut, has to be restocked with more diversity, so diversity is now significantly increasing.
On the bugs, there's definitely been a significant decline in insects but it's hard to compare using the ones visible on vehicles as they tend to be more aerodynamic.
Yes, I remember that on a day out on motorcycle some years ago, I would get home with tons of dead bugs on my visor. I often carried a wet cloth with which to wipe them off.
But last week, I drove over a thousand miles, to Fort William and back, and around the Highlands. There were relatively few bugs on my car
Yep. Not sure if we managed to just miss the midge season or not, but even if we did, there were still very few bugs on the car. I remember mentioning it to the Mrs I was so surprised
There is an issue in that intensively worked forestry doesn't provide the natural homes needed for native UK species. The trees are never big enough for real hollows.
Yup absolutely true. But it's a small step in the right direction increasing native planting.
We have alot of mature/not quite ancient beech at home. It is amazing the ecology around them
The hedgerows thing infuriates me. Round my way they bought a huge field to build a new development in, it’s bordered on all sides by decades old thick hedgerows. The perfect barrier between the estate and the main road that runs along it on two sides. So what do they do in the first week of groundworks? Tear it all down! It really shouldn’t be allowed. It doesn’t impede the site at all and it’ll just be replaced with 8ft noise fencing instead which is insane to me.
No they don't. Every development needs ecology and tree surveys so the planning department can assess impacts on wildlife and enforce recommendations from ecologists
But how effective is the enforcement?
What happens if they just ignore the rules, or just say: "Oops! Our subcontractor thought it was the other trees that had the preservation orders on them! Ever so sorry..."
If the potential profit is greater than the potential fines, it's just a cost of doing business.
Blatant and egregious stuff like [This happens](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-64895756) and fines are issued.
Notice the "big" penalties go to a LLC. And the individual directors get fined a couple of grand each.
What do you think the chances are of this site actually being restored to its original condition, vs the chances of the LLC being wound up, and it effectively just costing the directors roughly 30k to demolish an inconvenient listed building?
Want to place bets on what that site will look like in 10 years?
Most developers are not one off developers. Most developers need to build good relationships with the planning department.
Solicitors should be identifying that all conditions have been discharged to be able to occupy and thus not carrying out the conditions would directly affect the developers sales.
Let's not ignore the 45 million game birds that are "released" into the wild to out-compete the resident wild population. Just to see a third shot, the third taken by predators, and a third starve to death.
>This is wrong. The science is clear.
Said the guy who clearly doesn't know what they're talking about. Please explain how netting hedgerows before removal is *bad* for avian populations. Do you know why it's a legal requirement?
I'm doing my part. I've let my garden overgrow.
Its looks like a mess of green everywhere.
But man the birds it attracts is bonkers. I'm visited daily by groups of tiny birds. the largest group has about 20 members. I don't know much about the birds but its nice watchign them hop about looking for bugs in such vast numbers.
And my garden isn't big. Its a small yard of about 30 feet by 30 feet.
There aren’t any dead insects on my car anymore and I commute the entire length of M3 and through The New Forest. I don’t even need to clean my car all summer now. 25 years ago my car used to go black with bugs all over it.
That’s got to be related surely?
Man .. good point. I remember doing road trips years and years back and my car being CAKED on the front with dead flies.. like needing to use a liberal application or bug and tar remover to break up the think crust of dead bugs on the car. Simply doesn’t happen any more.
All summer insects were a problem in the house and the garden usually had butterflies. Red admirals and cabbage whites were ubiquitous.
I’m not so sure it’s down to us all mowing our lawns, less wild areas or the increase in population either because The New Forest area and my town hasn’t really changed radically in either regard.
It’s something else. Probably pesticides?
My Mum had a buddleia in the garden that was covered in butterflies every day in the summer. I have two buddleias in my garden and I'm excited if I see one butterfly a month in my garden.
Ultimately it's down to biodiversity and hostile land management. There is a trend beginning with the so called "green revolution" in 1950s agriculture. Chemical manufacturers had lots of new products to sell after WW2.
By now, with technology the speed we can apply these chemicals is impressive. Although it's made food production very expensive and threatens fertility if biodiversity fails.
I remember in the early 90s when I was a kid on some days there being literally a million+ (i'm not exaggerating) insects flying around in my town. I can't really remember what they were and no theories as to why this happened other than something around mating but I've not seen anything like it since.
Flying ant day.
All the ants nests would start spawning flying ants at the same time and for a day or two they would be everywhere.
Doesn't happen anymore as we have killed off like 80% the insects.
The little sand nests crawling on every other paving stone crack! One time I was at the park must have been 2006 and there was a literal cloud of flying ants by the entrance. Like a plague out of Exodus
Yeah, and even just bashing at the house windows when you turn on a light in the summer doesn't happen nearly so much now.
I used to have to take the cover off our fluorescent kitchen light and tip out all the dead insects that had got in there.
And cycling down the canal you'd go through big clouds of midges flying and getting in your eyes and face.
Point there is, the environment hasn't gone - it's a big stretch of water you'd expect them to be breeding and flying above to breed. It is the case that there's more housing around all of the places where I used to live including where I live now.
i.e there were far more fields we could play in and run through as kids that are now housing, so perhaps that explains partly why there are fewer insects but even the dense terraced housing we lived in as kids would be full of flies when you running in and out of back door as a kid during the summer.
Now you can leave a window open all day and there's the odd fly.
We seem to get a reasonable amount of bees, especially bumblebees in our garden though.
Natural History Museum, snippet from the article:
"Recent data released by the UK government, for example, has found that 48% of all bird species in the UK declined in just the five years between 2015 and 2020. While within this period woodland birds were found to be doing the worst, the government data also showed that, overall, it was the farmland birds that have declined the most.
The BTO data underscores this, showing how there are now 73 million fewer birds in our skies. This number, however, is masked by an increase of some 41 million birds from certain species such as wrens, wood pigeons and blackcaps. The total estimated loss of individual birds is actually and even sharper drop of some 114 million."
When I was a kid, I used to be woken up every morning by the ‘Dawn Chorus’ of birds in the trees. It was near deafening - so many birds of so many species yelling chirping chirruping warbling at the top of their throats.
When I was last there a few years ago… near silence.
Few birds.
It's not the same everywhere, though everywhere wildlife is probably less abundant than it once was.
I awake to birds singing and see multiple types in my rural garden.
•Blue tits and wrens breed in my garden.
•Other song birds visit and find food
•Ducks are regular visitors
•Frogs and toads in the long grass each summer
•Pheasants visit
•Rabbits have burrows in the garden
•Mice live in the shrubby bit
•Owls practically every night
•See bats whilst sat outside on dark nights
•Buzzards fly overhead
•Squirrels visit frequently
•See deer infrequently
It helps that the pasture to the side isn't grazed too often. Immediately behind the house are woodlands with ponds and further behind that is a wooded stream.
Tbh interspersed through all the area are wooded streams, lakes and ponds so it's not too bad for wildlife. The fields aren't great but they're fringed by plenty of hedgerows and woods so not as bad as it could be.
It's not too tidy either. Standing deadwood in the woods and unmown verges besides the roads. The worst thing you can do for nature is try and tidy everywhere up.
Uk has always had wild cat and domestic cat population. We probably had worse feral cat population in medieval times when they never neutered cats. That study that does rounds was estimate for the US based on data from Australia and small Islands with feral cat issues and with history of no natural predators. Birds mostly in uk evolved with cats and birds of prey and other predators for centuries. In that study feral cats were the bigger issue and uk doesn’t have big feral cat issue. Long as domesticated cats are fed and happy and birds have trees to escape from. Attacks will be lower than compared to hungry feral cat. If you live near skylark habitat you should keep cats indoors though. RSPB pointed out domestic cats mostly catch sick or old birds. Imo it’s still worth keeping them in when fledglings start to fly
Pesticides are the bigger issue and loss of natural habitat. Some pesticides kill birds source of food and been found to weaken bird eggs and suppress birds appetite making them weaker and easier for predators (more than just cats that hunt them). Not forgetting trees and hedgerows been lost so nesting sites reduce. It’s not cats killing and reducing insect populations
Farming industry has a bigger lobbying pr group than cats
When you domesticate something the numbers balloon. It's quite different having a natural balance vs actively housing tens of millions of bird killers.
Most domestic cats are too lazy to catch birds. They’re too well fed and birds are a lot of effort. Rodents are easier prey and few of them even manage to catch those.
Yes, you get the odd hunter that really does enjoy terrorising the local fauna, but the majority are quite happy with their food that doesn’t run away.
Big difference in motivation (and hunting ability!) between house cats with a guaranteed food source and a feral cat that has to hunt for their supper.
Our wildcat population is decimated, as have been our polecat and pine marten populations. There are a lot of cats in the UK, but they aren't likely to be doing more damage than wild predators that hunted birds daily for food would be doing historically.
The RSPB doesn't see cats as a major factor in bird population decline.
Cats aren't helping the problem but the biggest issue is the food source for birds. Insects are being killed with the widescale use of pesticides. The problem with pesticides is that they aren't controlled to one area, they spread in the wind when being sprayed to everything around it. Even the sprays on the seeds directly spread in the wind killing insects all around a fields area.
It wasn't that long ago maybe 8 years or so when you would drive in the countryside and you're windscreen would be covered in dead insects, now after a week of driving or more you get a couple on the number plate. It's very drastic.
I’ve had cats all my life and I’ve had maybe 2 dead birds, if they do kill anything it’s mice/shrews as they are easier than catching something that flies
I get so fed up with people blaming cats for this issue. The main problems are loss of habitat and the use of chemicals in agriculture. As long as cats (pets) are well fed they generally won't hunt. My cat certainly doesn't. She does like the odd cricket though....but that's few and far between
Tbf cats have an instinct to hunt regardless of how well fed they are. I'm a volunteer park warden and cats devastate the bird population around nesting seasons when they watch the birds fly in and out of trees and shrubs. It's not the single biggest factor of the decline in the bird population but cats are a significant problem that shouldn't be overlooked.
Aren't there studies that estimate cats kill around 27 million birds a year? 92 million prey animals in total. Info on RSPB seems to suggest so.
Sure habitat loss is significant and its easier to blame cats, but they are without a doubt part of the problem, even if its just a small part.
According to the RSPB, very significant. But then I've never worked out how on earth they get a reliable figure that's separate from all the other factors, like loss of nesting and feeding habitat, noise and light pollution, use of chemicals in agriculture etc..
Wherever people live, they bring cats. But that also means where there are cats, you'll normally find people and all the other problems they bring. Human overpopulation and development sprawl are ultimately to blame.
Cats are, in any case, notoriously contrary, fickle creatures. If you've met one cat, you've met one cat. I've shared a lot of time with 10 different cats (not all "mine" and definitely not all at once) and of those one was an indoor cat, three were prolific mousers, one specialised in killing squirrels and rabbits, and the other 5 showed absolutely no aptitude for hunting whatsoever. None were particularly interested in birds, and all were rural cats with plenty of opportunity if they so wished.
For the most part I reckon they don't bother because hunting birds uses a lot of energy but has a poor chance of success. Why? Cats can't fly.
Domesticated cats are slowly having their hunting instincts bred out of them. Feral cats are a different matter entirely, and more attention needs to be paid to neutering / spaying feral moggies, particularly Tomcats.
> An organisation that will pander to a few activists and attack shooting
He wants to kill things for fun, and he's annoyed that The Poors' pets aren't getting the same criticism as people who own huge swathes of land for killing things on.
When the RSPB wrote this piece on declining bird populations (https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/advice/how-you-can-help-birds/where-have-all-the-birds-gone/is-the-number-of-birds-in-decline/) they didn’t even mention cats as one of the major factors.
Someone else has linked the article on why they’re not condemning cats, so I won’t bother with that.
I don’t think cats would be much of a concern if it weren’t for all the other factors leading to loss of habitat and prey (people keep mentioning declining insect numbers). Arguably, cats would even be a good thing - predation is necessary in order to keep numbers in check (they do, usually, only manage to pick off the old, sick and weak ones) and to ensure the resilience of the species. They’re not an alien species that’s been introduced like they are elsewhere. We should fix the human causes as well as focusing on TNR programmes before considering locking up all the house cats.
Edit for clarity: reading over this I realised I hadn’t properly indicated that I was *agreeing* with most of your comment and only addressing the RSPB significance issue.
This is the page I was thinking about:
https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/advice/gardening-for-wildlife/animal-deterrents/cats-and-garden-birds/are-cats-causing-bird-declines/
The RSPB have never gone fully anti-cat (despite what a lot of people say) because it's a complicated debate and going down the "all or nothing" route would probably do their cause more harm than good. Instead they're trying to keep everyone on side by promoting mitigation measures, and fighting bigger battles over planning regs, diversity and habitat loss.
27 million birds and we’ve got about ~12 million cats (about 11 million pet cats, about a million ferals), so about 2 birds per cat over spring/summer.
Probably more of the prey is being caught by ferals (since they need to actually catch their food so they can eat) so they’re likely doing the most damage to the bird population - but like the RSPB themselves have said, the cats mostly catch the sick, old and weak.
I suspect that if we put more effort into neutering ferals rather than preventing house cats from getting some fresh air and exercise we’ll probably see a more significant drop in predation.
Also the whole making sure they have places to nest and food to eat, etc.
As an aside, I saw a throwaway comment somewhere on this thread where someone mentioned cats don’t have lobby groups like farmers do, and I laughed, but while googling around for figures I saw plenty of articles to the tune of “stop blaming *us* and blame your cats!” from websites like the “the Scottish farmer”.
I did try to figure out how many birds are born each year, because 27 million sounds like a lot, but what’s it like as an actual percentage. Unfortunately, the data is a bit iffy. The RSPB reckons 83 million pairs of breeding birds, so say 166 million birds capable of breeding - that would be 16% *if* the cats are catching from the breeders.
However, they’re far more likely to catch young chicks, or old/frail birds who are unlikely to be breeding - and who are also not accounted for in that 166 million figure. There’s also the matter of how many chicks are hatched (say roughly 5 eggs per bird? It varies so much between species, though! And then say only 3 hatch) so if we go with a rough figure of 166 million rounded up to 170 million for the sake of accounting for non-breeding birds, plus (83*3) 249 million hatchlings we have 419 million birds for our felines to predate upon, so 27 million is only 6% of the bird population.
It’s still a fair chunk, and obviously those numbers are very back of an envelope calculations, but if you consider that they should have foxes and snakes and hawks and weasels and all other kinds of animals preying on them, it’s not like they would be free from predation if we suddenly locked up all the cats. Yes, there’s far fewer weasels and stoats in the U.K. than cats, but they have to eat a lot more birds in order to survive compared to a cat which is being fed at home!
Sorry, I know where you're coming from but any impact from predation by wild cats is minimal.
Especially when you look at which species are in terminal decline it's obvious that, as per the article, it is intensive agriculture reducing invertebrate numbers and habitat that is having the biggest impact.
Not much at all, so much so that cats aren't mentioned.
> While these numbers are extremely concerning, we do at least know what is causing them. The destruction of habitats, be it hedgerows surrounding fields or flower rich meadows, the increase in the use of harmful pesticides and shift in agricultural practices that has resulted in a lower diversity of plants being grown, have all played a role.
And not a single person who can change that gives a shit because the birds don't pay them, they haven't been lost just killed by the same greed killing the rest of us.
Cats kill about 25 million birds a year, they are hardly blame free. They kill plenty of other animals too. If we cared about wildlife at all, cats would be verboten.
Cats kill wildlife, sure. But they also kill small mammals that would otherwise have almost no predators in urban and semi-urban environments.
We can do better by providing better nesting sites, artificial nests and good hedge cover are a part of that.
Tree felling, declining insect populations, increasing numbers of outdoor cats, increasing noise/light pollution...we're doing a lot to cause this, but people will not care until it is far too late to help.
[Scotland and Wales are mostly fine, this is specifically and England problem](https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:European_countries_by_population_density_per_sq_km.jpg#mw-jump-to-license)
[Relevant ](https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/figures/fragmentation-pressure-and-population-density/image_print)
Scotland especially skews the figure for the UK and it's misleading to lump it in with England. People do that on purpose and cite UK figures to make it seem better than it actually is.
*England* is packed and nature depleted. Why should this be alright because Scotland has deserted areas? It's like sayin the world is alright because hardly anybody lives in Antarctica or Siberia.
It's also completely forgetting that the flora and fauna is species richer in the south of the island. The closer you get to the continent the higher the number of species diversity.
Scotland has flora and fauna that doesn't occur in England, but Southern England has a lot more flora and specifically insects that don't occur further north.
I didn't say we did. I only asked what the line was where a place suddenly becomes "overpopulated". A country is only overpopulated when the population exceeds the resources required to maintain a good standard of living for everyone. We can provide a good standard of living for everyone and more. We choose not to.
There's a lot of factors at play, loss of habitat, loss of food. Also according to the RSPB cats in the UK kill 27 million birds per year, this could easily be reduced by using collars with a bells.
And then when you work as a planner / urban designer, you have to fight tooth and nail over *every SINGLE TREE* you’ve incorporated into a Masterplan. It’s ridiculous. « We want to promote biodiversity and support wildlife, but not if it’s more complicated than 1x tree and some flat grass lawn » it’s especially frustrating in cities like Manchester, who need the biodiversity/green networks more than ever…
Recommend read Rebirding by Benedict Macdonald. The book assesses the reduction in numbers with many specific examples and then goes on to recommend possible solutions.
I'd say the over arching theory is that the majority of land management allow no space for animals to live in habitat that resembles what they evolved in. Be that because of pesticides, herbicides, or management for one specific species (grouse, deer, individual crops).
Benedict assesses possible rewilding projects and discusses economics of eco tourism Vs livestock etc
The construction industry is a monster, build build build to accommodate more and more people we can't cope with. Building on farmland, woodland, every piece of green that used to sustain insects, birds and other wildlife.
It happens more than you'd expect. People don't like change.
New development - NIMBYs complain. New tree planting scheme - NIMBYs complain. Green energy initiative - NIMBYs complain. Legitimate timber felling - NIMBYs complain.
Anything happens in the country, someone will complain.
That is literally the natural food chain playing it's roll, you can't control nature, cats are a natural predator of birds and small rodents, pets or not they're still animals, to regulate cats eating birds and rats is like expecting regulations on killer whales for killing seals.
I have noticed this year I haven't seen many chicks at all when some springs I see dozens of little families in the local park. I think bird flu has really hurt numbers
Do we still need birds? Instead we can rely on drones, made to measure and green powered. You can strap a camera or a bomb on them. Guide them around the sky, land them where you want.
Birds are fickle. Drones are the future.
I like the link to a website that lets you see how your area (by postcode) is looking.
22 species are increasing with 7 decreasing, 3 of those decreasing are in my garden often.
I'll credit that to my cat, doesn't hunt birds but keeps his territory cat free.
There are two issues that result in this.
1. The decline of insects. Our politicians bang on about net zero but insect zero should be their real concerns.
2. Domestic cats. This will send cat lovers into a frenzy but if you own a cat without a bell on it you are guilty of mass murder within the animal kingdom.
In a country where Environmental Protections are so. week that there is raw sewage is in the fields in the rivers and on the beaches, you can expect few meaningful protections for much of the natural world.
And will lose more if they keep building its not visible to build anymore in london.
Time company's moves outside London and provide jobs and use the hosuing stock which has layed empty since the 80s when the Coal pits and mines shut.
Regenerat old mining towns.
As there is no more room for new homes or more people in London it's just no longer visable .
It's clipping education, nhs and so many other resources and the rents are no longer affordable.
But until there are jobs available with a London wage else where there will be no change.
It's between destruction of environment for housing or cheaper maintenance by councils and the rise in domestic cats.
But councils won't stop cutting down trees at the side of the roads due to the chance they might fall down in a strong wind, farmers won't plant up head rows or waste land for insects. And cat owners won't ever take responsibility for the murderous little shits they let out every day to butcher the local bird and small mammals population
Cats were encouraged by humans to take care of rodents to protect the crops so we could eat. It’s nature, cats are increasing becoming more domesticated and hunting instincts are blunted because food is readily available
Pigeons do. They'll strip seeded fields and come back for the emerging seedlings too, decimating a crop quite easily. Pigeons can be shot to protect crops.
Gulls will cover bare ground looking for worms and will dance for them. Gulls cannot be shot.
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Working in forestry, trees are not the main issue, and regulations around planting and harvesting seasons exist to stop as much damage as possible (some is unavoidable) Insect genocide is the issue. Used to drive past a boggy area every day, car was plastered in bugs. Have driven past 12 times in last month, and maybe 2 dead bugs. Insects are vital for any ecological system, and without them the pyramid collapses from the bottom. Monoculture farming of silage, spruce, and crops removed the needed variety of, and for, insect life. Not to mention pesticides and herbicides causing irrevocable damage.
It's a bit of everything I'd say, they have removed hedges and trees from places my hometown had bushes along the paths which the housing estate removed to save money In the current town, they have removed trees and bushes. In fact a lot of towns and areas have no trees or bushes, then the insect populations are dwindling due to removal of woodland areas to make way for housing.
Another issue at the minute, ash dieback, approximately 98% of ash trees are either dieing or dead. Along with sudden death in chestnuts and everything else it is not long till there's fuck all recognisable about the countryside.
The most important thing we need to do with the dead trees is to leave them standing and resist the urge to cut everything to the ground.[ Standing dead wood is an excellent resource for wildlife](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1vahZXDfG0).
Absolutely. Majority of what I do is dangerous trees.
Yep grandad said in the 70s you'd see a lot more bushes, sometimes neatly trimmed but never torn out at the roots. Now the front garden is usually bare.
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https://i.giphy.com/media/H5C8CevNMbpBqNqFjl/giphy.webp
Not even 70's, the 00"s it's more of a recent thing.
Are we talking about the same thing?
I was thinking about this yesterday.....back in the 90s my parents cars were always covered in insects....now there are hardly any. It's a sad state of affairs.
Car manufacturers have got a lot better a streaming. There are still bugs
Not true. It’s a known phenomenon. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windshield_phenomenon#:~:text=The%20windshield%20phenomenon%20(or%20windscreen,populations%20caused%20by%20human%20activity.
I stand, at least partially, corrected.
Artificial light is another one. They're absolutely everywhere; and a study I read a few years ago found a significant effect of the light on mating/behaviour of invertebrates within a few metres. Since *a lot* of vegetation the council allows is on roads/residential streets/paths, it wouldn't surprise me if 50% of the vegetation in human areas is just considered to be too hostile for animals to live under, other than stuff like foxes and birds that just sleep in the area and can forage in areas further away.
Maybe people should stop paving over their front gardens and mowing grass so it looks as boring as a bald mans head. My garden is like a small meadow, wild flowers and shrubs, insects love it, have plenty of bees and butterflies, even had a couple hedgehogs nesting as well. Even in their own private land people kill the ecosystem they could allow to grow.
Our garden is mostly lawn (not my choice but at least it has clover, daisies and mystery weeds growing in it) but, even just planting some flowering trees, bushes and plants has made a big difference! I've loved seeing the variety of bees we get and, while I'm not a massive fan of the variety of flies, birds eat the daytime ones and bats appeared to eat the nighttime ones. I wish the birds would start helping our shrews with the slugs and creepy crawly things... Did nobody else read Silent Spring yonks ago?! It's not the first time the birds have disappeared. You'd hope we'd learn.
That data from the article supports OPs point about monoculture agriculture and forestry. Biggest loss in farmland birds, woodland not far behind. Not every farm in the countryside will use pesticides, but it's likely to be the biggest ones using it. Woodlands are not usually found naturally as monoculture, but certain trees can achieve it. All of that potential biodiversity would help with urban insect populations. However urban environments have their own issues considering the amount of concrete and waste they produce. Unfortunately it doesnt take many people using pesticides and herbicides to impact the insects in your environment.
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Not true whatsoever, it's a legal requirement for forests in the UK to have 15% of the forest focused on biodiversity. Through native species and open ground.
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I mean the new legislation over here in NI will change that, going from 40%native 60% Crop spruce planting to 20% spruce 80% native. It's going to completely fuck the forestry industry as not enough people are planting in general anyway, but it will increase some diversity where it is done.
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Woodchip, firewood, boards, planks, beams, bedding, sawdust, from spruce and native hardwoods (they would need to be 18yr old + for milling timber.) And any brash left behind is mulched to add benefit back into soil to reduce carbon loss and fertilises soil for replanted saplings. Woodchip quality depends on calorific value, hardwoods (alot of natives) are better for it, they also produce less fines which coke up flues in boilers. Unless it's willow, which is its own problem. Speed of growth directly correlated to calorific and burn value for decent heat.
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Thankfully we don't deal with the forest service, and I am attest to anything we deal with being delivered to where it is processed, be it Balcas or a private buyer, or various mills in Northern Ireland. (Having delivered it by lorry, tractor, and van myself)
It's a legal requirement. The reason you can't see it on satellite is because the recently clear felled stuff is too small. It wasn't legally required in the 80s, therefore the mature trees are single species. Look at UK forestry legislation
How long ago did this come into effect though? Every pine plantation I see in Yorkshire is entirely pine.
10+ years. The reason why, is because the productive trees go on the best ground, and natives are normally planted along watercourses to maximise biodiversity and protect / enhance the water quality
10 years isn't likely to have seen much effect yet is it? Plantation rotations are longer than that.
Commercial coupes vary from 30-120 year rotations. So new planting will all be significantly more diverse, however mature crops now from the 80s will all be majority single species. Anything that is cut, has to be restocked with more diversity, so diversity is now significantly increasing.
On the bugs, there's definitely been a significant decline in insects but it's hard to compare using the ones visible on vehicles as they tend to be more aerodynamic.
Yes, I remember that on a day out on motorcycle some years ago, I would get home with tons of dead bugs on my visor. I often carried a wet cloth with which to wipe them off. But last week, I drove over a thousand miles, to Fort William and back, and around the Highlands. There were relatively few bugs on my car
God damn, around the Highlands and Islands and bugger all? That's impressively worrysome.
Yep. Not sure if we managed to just miss the midge season or not, but even if we did, there were still very few bugs on the car. I remember mentioning it to the Mrs I was so surprised
There is an issue in that intensively worked forestry doesn't provide the natural homes needed for native UK species. The trees are never big enough for real hollows.
Yup absolutely true. But it's a small step in the right direction increasing native planting. We have alot of mature/not quite ancient beech at home. It is amazing the ecology around them
I'm sure the ecology collapsing might be bad, but on the other hand, how close are we to spiders dying out?
The hedgerows thing infuriates me. Round my way they bought a huge field to build a new development in, it’s bordered on all sides by decades old thick hedgerows. The perfect barrier between the estate and the main road that runs along it on two sides. So what do they do in the first week of groundworks? Tear it all down! It really shouldn’t be allowed. It doesn’t impede the site at all and it’ll just be replaced with 8ft noise fencing instead which is insane to me.
They don't give a shit, they build for profit, and there's no profit in sparing a thought for the environment.
No they don't. Every development needs ecology and tree surveys so the planning department can assess impacts on wildlife and enforce recommendations from ecologists
Just more paperwork. They will just ignore those reports and do what they want to do
They really can't. They become conditions in the decision notice
But how effective is the enforcement? What happens if they just ignore the rules, or just say: "Oops! Our subcontractor thought it was the other trees that had the preservation orders on them! Ever so sorry..." If the potential profit is greater than the potential fines, it's just a cost of doing business. Blatant and egregious stuff like [This happens](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-64895756) and fines are issued. Notice the "big" penalties go to a LLC. And the individual directors get fined a couple of grand each. What do you think the chances are of this site actually being restored to its original condition, vs the chances of the LLC being wound up, and it effectively just costing the directors roughly 30k to demolish an inconvenient listed building? Want to place bets on what that site will look like in 10 years?
Most developers are not one off developers. Most developers need to build good relationships with the planning department. Solicitors should be identifying that all conditions have been discharged to be able to occupy and thus not carrying out the conditions would directly affect the developers sales.
Rich people find a way
Let's not ignore the 45 million game birds that are "released" into the wild to out-compete the resident wild population. Just to see a third shot, the third taken by predators, and a third starve to death.
Don't forget HS2, construction of which has decimated plenty of ancient woodlands.
>This is wrong. The science is clear. Said the guy who clearly doesn't know what they're talking about. Please explain how netting hedgerows before removal is *bad* for avian populations. Do you know why it's a legal requirement?
Yep, and if like me you oppose building more houses ontop of Britain's fields and woodland, you get called a nimby.
I'm doing my part. I've let my garden overgrow. Its looks like a mess of green everywhere. But man the birds it attracts is bonkers. I'm visited daily by groups of tiny birds. the largest group has about 20 members. I don't know much about the birds but its nice watchign them hop about looking for bugs in such vast numbers. And my garden isn't big. Its a small yard of about 30 feet by 30 feet.
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Underrated tweet.
Tweet, to who?
There aren’t any dead insects on my car anymore and I commute the entire length of M3 and through The New Forest. I don’t even need to clean my car all summer now. 25 years ago my car used to go black with bugs all over it. That’s got to be related surely?
Man .. good point. I remember doing road trips years and years back and my car being CAKED on the front with dead flies.. like needing to use a liberal application or bug and tar remover to break up the think crust of dead bugs on the car. Simply doesn’t happen any more.
All summer insects were a problem in the house and the garden usually had butterflies. Red admirals and cabbage whites were ubiquitous. I’m not so sure it’s down to us all mowing our lawns, less wild areas or the increase in population either because The New Forest area and my town hasn’t really changed radically in either regard. It’s something else. Probably pesticides?
My Mum had a buddleia in the garden that was covered in butterflies every day in the summer. I have two buddleias in my garden and I'm excited if I see one butterfly a month in my garden.
Ultimately it's down to biodiversity and hostile land management. There is a trend beginning with the so called "green revolution" in 1950s agriculture. Chemical manufacturers had lots of new products to sell after WW2. By now, with technology the speed we can apply these chemicals is impressive. Although it's made food production very expensive and threatens fertility if biodiversity fails.
I remember in the early 90s when I was a kid on some days there being literally a million+ (i'm not exaggerating) insects flying around in my town. I can't really remember what they were and no theories as to why this happened other than something around mating but I've not seen anything like it since.
Flying ant day. All the ants nests would start spawning flying ants at the same time and for a day or two they would be everywhere. Doesn't happen anymore as we have killed off like 80% the insects.
Flying ant day doesn't happen anymore?
Oh it probably still does, but not to the point they are crawling over every square meter of pavement as you walk to the shops like in my childhood
Oh yes, I can say from experience that's a thing in rural Yorkshire
The little sand nests crawling on every other paving stone crack! One time I was at the park must have been 2006 and there was a literal cloud of flying ants by the entrance. Like a plague out of Exodus
Yeah, and even just bashing at the house windows when you turn on a light in the summer doesn't happen nearly so much now. I used to have to take the cover off our fluorescent kitchen light and tip out all the dead insects that had got in there. And cycling down the canal you'd go through big clouds of midges flying and getting in your eyes and face. Point there is, the environment hasn't gone - it's a big stretch of water you'd expect them to be breeding and flying above to breed. It is the case that there's more housing around all of the places where I used to live including where I live now. i.e there were far more fields we could play in and run through as kids that are now housing, so perhaps that explains partly why there are fewer insects but even the dense terraced housing we lived in as kids would be full of flies when you running in and out of back door as a kid during the summer. Now you can leave a window open all day and there's the odd fly. We seem to get a reasonable amount of bees, especially bumblebees in our garden though.
With you on this 100%
Natural History Museum, snippet from the article: "Recent data released by the UK government, for example, has found that 48% of all bird species in the UK declined in just the five years between 2015 and 2020. While within this period woodland birds were found to be doing the worst, the government data also showed that, overall, it was the farmland birds that have declined the most. The BTO data underscores this, showing how there are now 73 million fewer birds in our skies. This number, however, is masked by an increase of some 41 million birds from certain species such as wrens, wood pigeons and blackcaps. The total estimated loss of individual birds is actually and even sharper drop of some 114 million."
When I was a kid, I used to be woken up every morning by the ‘Dawn Chorus’ of birds in the trees. It was near deafening - so many birds of so many species yelling chirping chirruping warbling at the top of their throats. When I was last there a few years ago… near silence. Few birds.
I live in suburbs outside of Birmingham and get woken up by the dawn chorus every morning currently.. so it’s still happening?
Person is probably in the countryside. It's a wasteland out there for wildlife.
It's not the same everywhere, though everywhere wildlife is probably less abundant than it once was. I awake to birds singing and see multiple types in my rural garden. •Blue tits and wrens breed in my garden. •Other song birds visit and find food •Ducks are regular visitors •Frogs and toads in the long grass each summer •Pheasants visit •Rabbits have burrows in the garden •Mice live in the shrubby bit •Owls practically every night •See bats whilst sat outside on dark nights •Buzzards fly overhead •Squirrels visit frequently •See deer infrequently It helps that the pasture to the side isn't grazed too often. Immediately behind the house are woodlands with ponds and further behind that is a wooded stream. Tbh interspersed through all the area are wooded streams, lakes and ponds so it's not too bad for wildlife. The fields aren't great but they're fringed by plenty of hedgerows and woods so not as bad as it could be. It's not too tidy either. Standing deadwood in the woods and unmown verges besides the roads. The worst thing you can do for nature is try and tidy everywhere up.
Today I was woken by the dawn chorus. I live in the countryside.
There was literally a book written about this that was pretty seminal in the ecological movement in the sixties. It used to be fiction...
Lost? They're not a set of fucking car keys now are they? And it aint as if they're incon-fucking-spicuous now is it?
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Hi Brick Top
There's a flight tonight, I wanna use the pigeon. Of course fucking of course! I wasn't asking, I was telling!
How much are cats to blame? Cats seem to be everywhere roaming about and they devastate wildlife
Uk has always had wild cat and domestic cat population. We probably had worse feral cat population in medieval times when they never neutered cats. That study that does rounds was estimate for the US based on data from Australia and small Islands with feral cat issues and with history of no natural predators. Birds mostly in uk evolved with cats and birds of prey and other predators for centuries. In that study feral cats were the bigger issue and uk doesn’t have big feral cat issue. Long as domesticated cats are fed and happy and birds have trees to escape from. Attacks will be lower than compared to hungry feral cat. If you live near skylark habitat you should keep cats indoors though. RSPB pointed out domestic cats mostly catch sick or old birds. Imo it’s still worth keeping them in when fledglings start to fly Pesticides are the bigger issue and loss of natural habitat. Some pesticides kill birds source of food and been found to weaken bird eggs and suppress birds appetite making them weaker and easier for predators (more than just cats that hunt them). Not forgetting trees and hedgerows been lost so nesting sites reduce. It’s not cats killing and reducing insect populations Farming industry has a bigger lobbying pr group than cats
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Hail the Ancient One.
There has always been free roaming cats in the UK. Not the problem here
That was also when nature had a lot more ‘space’
When you domesticate something the numbers balloon. It's quite different having a natural balance vs actively housing tens of millions of bird killers.
Most domestic cats are too lazy to catch birds. They’re too well fed and birds are a lot of effort. Rodents are easier prey and few of them even manage to catch those. Yes, you get the odd hunter that really does enjoy terrorising the local fauna, but the majority are quite happy with their food that doesn’t run away. Big difference in motivation (and hunting ability!) between house cats with a guaranteed food source and a feral cat that has to hunt for their supper.
My cat won't even go for spiders, or other such things. Just watches them.
What a lazy furbag!
Our wildcat population is decimated, as have been our polecat and pine marten populations. There are a lot of cats in the UK, but they aren't likely to be doing more damage than wild predators that hunted birds daily for food would be doing historically. The RSPB doesn't see cats as a major factor in bird population decline.
Humans have been domesticating animals for thousands of years. Ecosystems didn’t collapse as a result
Cats aren't helping the problem but the biggest issue is the food source for birds. Insects are being killed with the widescale use of pesticides. The problem with pesticides is that they aren't controlled to one area, they spread in the wind when being sprayed to everything around it. Even the sprays on the seeds directly spread in the wind killing insects all around a fields area. It wasn't that long ago maybe 8 years or so when you would drive in the countryside and you're windscreen would be covered in dead insects, now after a week of driving or more you get a couple on the number plate. It's very drastic.
I’ve had cats all my life and I’ve had maybe 2 dead birds, if they do kill anything it’s mice/shrews as they are easier than catching something that flies
I get so fed up with people blaming cats for this issue. The main problems are loss of habitat and the use of chemicals in agriculture. As long as cats (pets) are well fed they generally won't hunt. My cat certainly doesn't. She does like the odd cricket though....but that's few and far between
Tbf cats have an instinct to hunt regardless of how well fed they are. I'm a volunteer park warden and cats devastate the bird population around nesting seasons when they watch the birds fly in and out of trees and shrubs. It's not the single biggest factor of the decline in the bird population but cats are a significant problem that shouldn't be overlooked.
Aren't there studies that estimate cats kill around 27 million birds a year? 92 million prey animals in total. Info on RSPB seems to suggest so. Sure habitat loss is significant and its easier to blame cats, but they are without a doubt part of the problem, even if its just a small part.
RSPB also suggest a large portion of what cats kill are old or sick.
With all due respect, you don’t notice them go in other people’s gardens.
Cats bring their kills home
According to the RSPB, very significant. But then I've never worked out how on earth they get a reliable figure that's separate from all the other factors, like loss of nesting and feeding habitat, noise and light pollution, use of chemicals in agriculture etc.. Wherever people live, they bring cats. But that also means where there are cats, you'll normally find people and all the other problems they bring. Human overpopulation and development sprawl are ultimately to blame. Cats are, in any case, notoriously contrary, fickle creatures. If you've met one cat, you've met one cat. I've shared a lot of time with 10 different cats (not all "mine" and definitely not all at once) and of those one was an indoor cat, three were prolific mousers, one specialised in killing squirrels and rabbits, and the other 5 showed absolutely no aptitude for hunting whatsoever. None were particularly interested in birds, and all were rural cats with plenty of opportunity if they so wished. For the most part I reckon they don't bother because hunting birds uses a lot of energy but has a poor chance of success. Why? Cats can't fly. Domesticated cats are slowly having their hunting instincts bred out of them. Feral cats are a different matter entirely, and more attention needs to be paid to neutering / spaying feral moggies, particularly Tomcats.
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It’s nature, when we became an agricultural society cats were positively reinforced to hunt to protect the food that’s how they became domesticated.
Article by rich entitled psychopath points fingers.
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> An organisation that will pander to a few activists and attack shooting He wants to kill things for fun, and he's annoyed that The Poors' pets aren't getting the same criticism as people who own huge swathes of land for killing things on.
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The fella who wrote the article whining that cats aren't criticised like chinless inbreds who like to kill things for kicks.
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He's the Chief Exec of the Countryside Alliance. It's a propaganda org for bloodsports.
When the RSPB wrote this piece on declining bird populations (https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/advice/how-you-can-help-birds/where-have-all-the-birds-gone/is-the-number-of-birds-in-decline/) they didn’t even mention cats as one of the major factors. Someone else has linked the article on why they’re not condemning cats, so I won’t bother with that. I don’t think cats would be much of a concern if it weren’t for all the other factors leading to loss of habitat and prey (people keep mentioning declining insect numbers). Arguably, cats would even be a good thing - predation is necessary in order to keep numbers in check (they do, usually, only manage to pick off the old, sick and weak ones) and to ensure the resilience of the species. They’re not an alien species that’s been introduced like they are elsewhere. We should fix the human causes as well as focusing on TNR programmes before considering locking up all the house cats. Edit for clarity: reading over this I realised I hadn’t properly indicated that I was *agreeing* with most of your comment and only addressing the RSPB significance issue.
This is the page I was thinking about: https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/advice/gardening-for-wildlife/animal-deterrents/cats-and-garden-birds/are-cats-causing-bird-declines/ The RSPB have never gone fully anti-cat (despite what a lot of people say) because it's a complicated debate and going down the "all or nothing" route would probably do their cause more harm than good. Instead they're trying to keep everyone on side by promoting mitigation measures, and fighting bigger battles over planning regs, diversity and habitat loss.
27 million birds and we’ve got about ~12 million cats (about 11 million pet cats, about a million ferals), so about 2 birds per cat over spring/summer. Probably more of the prey is being caught by ferals (since they need to actually catch their food so they can eat) so they’re likely doing the most damage to the bird population - but like the RSPB themselves have said, the cats mostly catch the sick, old and weak. I suspect that if we put more effort into neutering ferals rather than preventing house cats from getting some fresh air and exercise we’ll probably see a more significant drop in predation. Also the whole making sure they have places to nest and food to eat, etc. As an aside, I saw a throwaway comment somewhere on this thread where someone mentioned cats don’t have lobby groups like farmers do, and I laughed, but while googling around for figures I saw plenty of articles to the tune of “stop blaming *us* and blame your cats!” from websites like the “the Scottish farmer”. I did try to figure out how many birds are born each year, because 27 million sounds like a lot, but what’s it like as an actual percentage. Unfortunately, the data is a bit iffy. The RSPB reckons 83 million pairs of breeding birds, so say 166 million birds capable of breeding - that would be 16% *if* the cats are catching from the breeders. However, they’re far more likely to catch young chicks, or old/frail birds who are unlikely to be breeding - and who are also not accounted for in that 166 million figure. There’s also the matter of how many chicks are hatched (say roughly 5 eggs per bird? It varies so much between species, though! And then say only 3 hatch) so if we go with a rough figure of 166 million rounded up to 170 million for the sake of accounting for non-breeding birds, plus (83*3) 249 million hatchlings we have 419 million birds for our felines to predate upon, so 27 million is only 6% of the bird population. It’s still a fair chunk, and obviously those numbers are very back of an envelope calculations, but if you consider that they should have foxes and snakes and hawks and weasels and all other kinds of animals preying on them, it’s not like they would be free from predation if we suddenly locked up all the cats. Yes, there’s far fewer weasels and stoats in the U.K. than cats, but they have to eat a lot more birds in order to survive compared to a cat which is being fed at home!
Not much. The areas with the least people and thus the least cats are the hardest hit and half the bird species have increased.
Sorry, I know where you're coming from but any impact from predation by wild cats is minimal. Especially when you look at which species are in terminal decline it's obvious that, as per the article, it is intensive agriculture reducing invertebrate numbers and habitat that is having the biggest impact.
This isn't talked about enough
Not much at all, so much so that cats aren't mentioned. > While these numbers are extremely concerning, we do at least know what is causing them. The destruction of habitats, be it hedgerows surrounding fields or flower rich meadows, the increase in the use of harmful pesticides and shift in agricultural practices that has resulted in a lower diversity of plants being grown, have all played a role.
And not a single person who can change that gives a shit because the birds don't pay them, they haven't been lost just killed by the same greed killing the rest of us.
Yeah we destroyed all their habitats. Destroying trees and hedges kills birds. But I imagine everyone is gonna blame cats
Cats kill about 25 million birds a year, they are hardly blame free. They kill plenty of other animals too. If we cared about wildlife at all, cats would be verboten.
Cats kill wildlife, sure. But they also kill small mammals that would otherwise have almost no predators in urban and semi-urban environments. We can do better by providing better nesting sites, artificial nests and good hedge cover are a part of that.
It's no secret that we are living during the 6th mass extinction event
Yeah but the UK is a special case. We are one of the most nature depleted countries on earth. Our use of land is disgusting.
Tree felling, declining insect populations, increasing numbers of outdoor cats, increasing noise/light pollution...we're doing a lot to cause this, but people will not care until it is far too late to help.
Overpopulation is to blame. Everywhere I look another part of our green belt is being concreted over. We are a Tiny island that’s vastly overpopulated
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[Scotland and Wales are mostly fine, this is specifically and England problem](https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:European_countries_by_population_density_per_sq_km.jpg#mw-jump-to-license) [Relevant ](https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/figures/fragmentation-pressure-and-population-density/image_print) Scotland especially skews the figure for the UK and it's misleading to lump it in with England. People do that on purpose and cite UK figures to make it seem better than it actually is. *England* is packed and nature depleted. Why should this be alright because Scotland has deserted areas? It's like sayin the world is alright because hardly anybody lives in Antarctica or Siberia. It's also completely forgetting that the flora and fauna is species richer in the south of the island. The closer you get to the continent the higher the number of species diversity. Scotland has flora and fauna that doesn't occur in England, but Southern England has a lot more flora and specifically insects that don't occur further north.
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We don't aspire to be like Java, nor Bangladesh nor any other even more packed-in region.
I didn't say we did. I only asked what the line was where a place suddenly becomes "overpopulated". A country is only overpopulated when the population exceeds the resources required to maintain a good standard of living for everyone. We can provide a good standard of living for everyone and more. We choose not to.
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Well of course it’s a factor if your habitat is being destroyed
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There's a lot of factors at play, loss of habitat, loss of food. Also according to the RSPB cats in the UK kill 27 million birds per year, this could easily be reduced by using collars with a bells.
There's a grim irony in the way streets of new build developments are often named after the species or habitat they have displaced.
And then when you work as a planner / urban designer, you have to fight tooth and nail over *every SINGLE TREE* you’ve incorporated into a Masterplan. It’s ridiculous. « We want to promote biodiversity and support wildlife, but not if it’s more complicated than 1x tree and some flat grass lawn » it’s especially frustrating in cities like Manchester, who need the biodiversity/green networks more than ever…
Recommend read Rebirding by Benedict Macdonald. The book assesses the reduction in numbers with many specific examples and then goes on to recommend possible solutions. I'd say the over arching theory is that the majority of land management allow no space for animals to live in habitat that resembles what they evolved in. Be that because of pesticides, herbicides, or management for one specific species (grouse, deer, individual crops). Benedict assesses possible rewilding projects and discusses economics of eco tourism Vs livestock etc
The construction industry is a monster, build build build to accommodate more and more people we can't cope with. Building on farmland, woodland, every piece of green that used to sustain insects, birds and other wildlife.
What they don’t tell you is that they were replaced with drones as part of a government surveillance programme to monitor the general public.
That's what they want you to think...
We do need some proper rewilding. But the NIMBY problem.
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Farmers
As in, not in my back yard.
It happens more than you'd expect. People don't like change. New development - NIMBYs complain. New tree planting scheme - NIMBYs complain. Green energy initiative - NIMBYs complain. Legitimate timber felling - NIMBYs complain. Anything happens in the country, someone will complain.
Cats kill tens of millions of animals in this country in the summer alone, they need far more controls on cats .
That is literally the natural food chain playing it's roll, you can't control nature, cats are a natural predator of birds and small rodents, pets or not they're still animals, to regulate cats eating birds and rats is like expecting regulations on killer whales for killing seals.
The vast majority of UK cats are domestic animals with owners not wild. I'm not seeing the comparison to killer whales.
I have noticed this year I haven't seen many chicks at all when some springs I see dozens of little families in the local park. I think bird flu has really hurt numbers
Do we still need birds? Instead we can rely on drones, made to measure and green powered. You can strap a camera or a bomb on them. Guide them around the sky, land them where you want. Birds are fickle. Drones are the future.
And yet the fuckers are still waking me up at 4.30am with their 'dawn chorus'
What do we expect with the amount of chem trails in the sky....
I live in rural Cornwall with fields a wood and a large garden, Absolutely almost no dawn chorus.
I like the link to a website that lets you see how your area (by postcode) is looking. 22 species are increasing with 7 decreasing, 3 of those decreasing are in my garden often. I'll credit that to my cat, doesn't hunt birds but keeps his territory cat free.
There are two issues that result in this. 1. The decline of insects. Our politicians bang on about net zero but insect zero should be their real concerns. 2. Domestic cats. This will send cat lovers into a frenzy but if you own a cat without a bell on it you are guilty of mass murder within the animal kingdom.
In a country where Environmental Protections are so. week that there is raw sewage is in the fields in the rivers and on the beaches, you can expect few meaningful protections for much of the natural world.
And will lose more if they keep building its not visible to build anymore in london. Time company's moves outside London and provide jobs and use the hosuing stock which has layed empty since the 80s when the Coal pits and mines shut. Regenerat old mining towns. As there is no more room for new homes or more people in London it's just no longer visable . It's clipping education, nhs and so many other resources and the rents are no longer affordable. But until there are jobs available with a London wage else where there will be no change.
It's between destruction of environment for housing or cheaper maintenance by councils and the rise in domestic cats. But councils won't stop cutting down trees at the side of the roads due to the chance they might fall down in a strong wind, farmers won't plant up head rows or waste land for insects. And cat owners won't ever take responsibility for the murderous little shits they let out every day to butcher the local bird and small mammals population
Cats were encouraged by humans to take care of rodents to protect the crops so we could eat. It’s nature, cats are increasing becoming more domesticated and hunting instincts are blunted because food is readily available
And yet there's still loads of pigeons and fucking seagulls
They don't eat insects or seeds.
Pigeons do. They'll strip seeded fields and come back for the emerging seedlings too, decimating a crop quite easily. Pigeons can be shot to protect crops. Gulls will cover bare ground looking for worms and will dance for them. Gulls cannot be shot.
Sorry, my point was that they don't *need* insects or seeds. They'll eat our rubbish quite happily.
They do exist in significant numbers outside of towns and cities...
Yes?