The Holocene Extinction

[Bruce Steele]

Vox-mundi, I thought your latest post belonged here as well. Some of the birds listed, blue birds and olive sided flycatchers are here on my farm and I noted earlier a decrease in the blue bird numbers. I think roadrunners are also in decline and the highway serves as a very long term chronic mortality source.
https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/olive-sided-flycatcher

Re: Heatwaves
« Reply #381 on: Today at 10:45:32 PM »
Collapse of Desert Bird Populations Likely Due to Heat Stress from Climate Change
https://phys.org/news/2019-09-collapse-bird-populations-due-stress.html

As temperatures rise, desert birds need more water to cool off at the same time as deserts are becoming drier, setting some species up for a severe crash, if not extinction, according to a new study from the University of California, Berkeley.

... The researchers' latest findings, part of UC Berkeley's Grinnell Resurvey Project, come from comparing levels of species declines to computer simulations of how "virtual birds" must deal with heat on an average hot day in Death Valley, which can be in the 30s Celsius—90s Fahrenheit—with low humidity. These temperatures are, on average, 2 C (3.6 F) hotter than 100 years ago. The birds that the model predicted would require the most extra water today, compared to a 100 years ago, were the species that had declined the most in the Mojave Desert over the past century. The desert straddles the border between California and Nevada.

The most threatened turn out to be larger birds, and those that have an insect or animal diet.

The team calculated that larger birds, like the mourning dove, require 10% to 30% more water today to keep cool because of the 2 C increase in Mojave Desert temperatures over the last 100 years.



According to the UC Berkeley analysis, birds that eat insects or other animals are more threatened by changes in evaporative water loss because they typically get all of their water from the moisture in their food. They seldom, if ever, drink from surface water sources. A 30% increase in water requirement could mean that larger birds have to catch an extra 60 to 70 bugs per day to survive the increased heat. If those bugs are even around, the birds still have to expend extra energy and time to find them.

The American kestrel, prairie falcon and turkey vulture, all large and carnivorous, have declined, as have large insect-eaters like the white-throated swift, violet-green swallow, olive-sided flycatcher, Western meadowlark and Western bluebird.

Smaller birds that eat seeds or are omnivores are less threatened, according to the model.

Vegetarian birds, such as seedeaters, face a different problem. Because they can drink from surface water sources—springs and pools in desert oases, they can supplement the water they get from their food. But that's only if water is around.

... According to Beissinger, the team's conclusions about these California and Nevada desert birds may apply to species in other regions of the world.

Eric A. Riddell el al., "Cooling requirements fueled the collapse of a desert bird community from climate change," PNAS (2019)
 Logged
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― Leonardo da Vinci

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

[vox_mundi]

Thanks, Bruce 

Here on the East coast the survivors seem to be omnivores, seed and fruitovores. That said, the bird population here has crashed. Some days, I can count the number of birds I see in one day on one hand.

Fortunately, we have plenty of water.

[vox_mundi]

Booming Demand Driving Tuna to Extinction, Researchers Find
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/03/booming-demand-for-tuna-driving-unsustainable-level-of-fishing-report

Scientists have warned that existing levels of tuna fishing are unsustainable after researchers found that global catches have increased more than 1,000% over the past 60 years.

A study in the journal Fisheries Research estimated that about 6m tonnes of tuna are now caught annually, a rate that “risks driving tuna populations to unsustainable levels and possible extinction”.

... The decline of tuna populations could threaten food supply chains and jobs around the world, as well as potentially destabilising the underwater food web, Coulter said. “Tuna are both predators and prey. They eat smaller fish and invertebrates and are a food source for larger marine life, such as sharks and whales.

“If we lose tuna due to overexploitation, we break those links in the food web and disrupt the function of the ecosystem. This means that the survival of other species in the ecosystem is also threatened,” she said.


Fig.3: Global catches of tuna and other large pelagic fishes from 1950 to 2016 as assembled and harmonized from the five separate tuna RFMO datasets, by a) ocean basins; b) major taxa (156 additional taxa are pooled in ‘Other’); and c) important taxa beyond the 12 major target species covered in the FAO Atlas of Tuna and Billfish Catches (144 additional taxa are pooled in ‘Other’).

AngieCoulter, et.al., Using harmonized historical catch data to infer the expansion of global tuna fisheries,  Fisheries Research, 2020

[TerryM]

Vox
You might want to run some of these overfishing stories past Bruce. He's an excellent source of 1st hand information regarding the oceans & fishing. Sometimes the explanations aren't quite as one sided as they might at first appear.
Terry

[vox_mundi]

Thanks Terry

I think, though, tuna (and related species) are seriously stressed, especially bluefin. And we're working down the food chain.

As a keystones species it's having ripple effects in the rest of the ecosystem.

I do recall reading of a aquaculturist, possible in Australia, who had successfully farm raised bluefin. I haven't heard anything more, so that may have been a one shot wonder.

These meta-studies have the advantage of giving a systems level view of the subject that may not be obvious at the regional level.

[Bruce Steele]

Terry, There are lots of different tuna and different stocks around the world and I am no expert. I did fish albacore for a couple months out by the 200 mile line on a 38 ft. jig boat. Land was days away.
Not all the stocks are in bad shape . You might keep in mind that there hasn’t been a single fish species driven to extinction by commercial fishing. So I get a little put off when “ extinction “ is in the title. I did read the article ( part way )but it seemed solely based on fish landing data, kinda boring...My scientific review.

[kassy]

Climate change pushes Italy beekeepers to the brink

https://phys.org/news/2019-10-climate-italy-beekeepers-brink.html

Black year for European beekeepers

This year has been a black one for many European beekeepers, particularly in France and Italy, where unpredictable weather has produced what are being termed the worst honey harvests ever.

https://phys.org/news/2019-10-black-year-european-beekeepers.html

Of course the weird weather also influences all kinds of less monitored wild species.

[vox_mundi]

Botswana Rhinos Risk Wipeout as Poaching Rises
https://phys.org/news/2019-10-botswana-rhinos-wipeout-poaching.html

Nine Botswana rhinos have been poached since April, the government said Wednesday, an unprecedented rate of one per month that could see rhinos wiped out in the southern African country by 2021.

... Sold for up to 55,000 euros ($60,300) per kilo on the black market, rhino horn is used in traditional medicine or as a symbol of wealth and success.

Botswana's neighbour South Africa lost more than 7,100 rhinos over the past decade, including 769 in 2018.

Namibia has also recorded recent incidents of rhino poaching, which leaves the animal bleeding to death after its horn is hacked off.

[vox_mundi]

Two-Thirds of Bird Species in North America Could Vanish in Climate Crisis
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/10/bird-species-extinction-north-america-climate-crisis

Continent could lose 389 of 604 species studied to threats from rising temperatures, higher seas, heavy rains and urbanization

Bird extinctions are yet another face of the human-caused biodiversity crisis threatening up to a million animal and plant species. A related study from Cornell University last month found the US and Canada lost one in four birds – or 3 billion total – since 1970.

“Birds are indicators of the health of our environment, so if they disappear, we’re certainly going to see a lot of changes in the landscape,” said Brooke Bateman, the senior researcher who wrote the report. “If there are things changing with birds we have to understand that the environment is changing for us as well.”

[Hefaistos]

OTOH:
The world is literally a greener place than it was 20 years ago.
"Taken all together, the greening of the planet over the last two decades represents an increase in leaf area on plants and trees equivalent to the area covered by all the Amazon rainforests. There are now more than two million square miles of extra green leaf area per year, compared to the early 2000s – a 5% increase.

“But, now that we know direct human influence is a key driver of the greening Earth, we need to factor this into our climate models,” Nemani said. “This will help scientists make better predictions about the behavior of different Earth systems, which will help countries make better decisions about how and when to take action.”

The world is a greener place than it was 20 years ago, as shown on this map, where areas with the greatest increase in foliage are indicated in dark green. Data from a NASA instrument orbiting Earth aboard two satellites show that human activity in China and India dominate this greening of the planet."

More greens assumedely counteracts the "extinction". Or maybe it's all mono-culture greens where nothing else lives?
In any case, this is a real carbon sink.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/human-activity-in-china-and-india-dominates-the-greening-of-earth-nasa-study-shows

[wili]

I don't follow.

If this is mostly from ag products, where is the carbon sink. Maybe in the areas converting to no-till it could be, but where they are practicing traditional modern ag practices, there will be very little if any carbon sink...more likely carbon loss from degraded soils.

But perhaps I'm missing something here?

[Darvince]

This... has basically nothing to do with the thriving of, especially, wild animal species. If I'm a farmer in north-west India and I plant a small garden of fruit trees outside my house, that means leaf area has increased, but it doesn't mean biodiversity has increased.

And, from your article:

The researchers point out that the gain in greenness seen around the world and dominated by India and China does not offset the damage from loss of natural vegetation in tropical regions, such as Brazil and Indonesia. The consequences for sustainability and biodiversity in those ecosystems remain.

[Hefaistos]

I don't follow.

If this is mostly from ag products, where is the carbon sink. Maybe in the areas converting to no-till it could be, but where they are practicing traditional modern ag practices, there will be very little if any carbon sink...more likely carbon loss from degraded soils.

But perhaps I'm missing something here?

Forestation might be considered a carbon sink, no? From the article:
"China’s outsized contribution to the global greening trend comes in large part (42%) from programs to conserve and expand forests. These were developed in an effort to reduce the effects of soil erosion, air pollution and climate change. Another 32% there – and 82% of the greening seen in India – comes from intensive cultivation of food crops."

The rest apart from forestation is more correctly describes as carbon sequestration. Assumedly it will be more intense if it's land that is exploited for ag production with multiple cropping.

[vox_mundi]

Dozens of Elephants Die in Zimbabwe Drought
https://phys.org/news/2019-10-dozens-elephants-die-zimbabwe-drought.html

At least 55 elephants have died in a month in Zimbabwe due to a lack of food and water, its wildlife agency said Monday, as the country faces one of the worst droughts in its history.

... An adult elephant drinks 680 litres (180 gallons) of water per day on average and consumes 450 kilogrammes (990 pounds) of food.

... Africa's elephant numbers have dropped from around 415,000 to 111,000 over the past decade, mainly due to poaching for ivory, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

... More than five million rural Zimbabweans—nearly a third of the population—are at risk of food shortages before the next harvest in 2020, the United Nations has warned.

----------------------

Drought Causes More Than 100 Elephant Deaths in Botswana
https://phys.org/news/2019-10-drought-elephant-deaths-botswana.html

More than 100 elephants have died in two months in Botswana's Chobe National Park due to drought, which has also affected wildlife in other countries in the region, the government said Tuesday.

[kassy]

A third of tropical African plants face extinction

A third of tropical African plants are on the path to extinction, according to a new assessment.

Much of western Africa, Ethiopia, and parts of Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are the hardest hit regions, standing to lose more than 40% of their richness of plants.

Species at risk include trees, shrubs, herbs and woody vines.

Threats include deforestation, population growth and climate change, the scientists said.

...

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-50477684

[TerryM]

^^
Thank the powers that be that we've saved the venerable & revered coffee bush.
Life would be difficult indeed if natural stimulants were lost to future generations.
Terry

[nanning]

^^
Coffee doesn't grow in Europe, so I stopped with drinking coffee  .
Sacrifices for high morality and sanity  .

[vox_mundi]

Iman Was the Last of Her Kind in Malaysia. The Sumatran Rhino is Now Extinct In the Country.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/23/sumatran-rhinoceros-now-extinct-in-malaysia-say-zoologists
https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2019/11/23/iman-was-last-her-kind-malaysia-sumatran-rhino-is-now-extinct-country/?outputType=amp



A 25-year-old female Sumatran rhino has died at a sanctuary in Borneo, marking the extinction of the species in its native Malaysia.

There are fewer than 80 Sumatran rhinos — sometimes called “hair rhinos” — left in the world, with some estimates as low as 30, according to the World Wildlife Fund. Once native to rainforests throughout Asia, Sumatran rhinos now only live in the wild in Indonesia.

... “What’s made breeding these rhinos so difficult is because they are so solitary; you can’t house males and females together, or else they’ll fight, and the pairing has to be timed to when the female is ovulating,” Roth told The Washington Post on Saturday. “What’s happened with the wild population, and such fragmented forests, is that they don’t come into contact often enough.”

[nanning]

Thank you vox for your high quality, interesting and good to read posts. And cartoons

I'd like to warn people about an error in your top link. Many people make this mistake.
Is this way:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/23/sumatran-rhinoceros-now-extinct-in-malaysia-say-zoologists    all traffic from clicks will be routed through google.com, which is not what people think they clicked. In this way it is easy for Google to build a profile of you. This is the reason that many people use duckduckgo.com or startpage.com.

It is safe to remove the google part to get the correct link: theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/23/sumatran-rhinoceros-now-extinct-in-malaysia-say-zoologists

[vox_mundi]

Thanks for the insight nanning 

[kassy]

Now all that is left to do is to fix the link. 

As a wise man once said: You have received the information now act on it

[TerryM]

Good catch nanning!
erry

[nanning]

I don't think you're making that many mistakes Terry 

[vox_mundi]

Koalas ‘Functionally Extinct’ After Australia Bushfires Destroy 80% Of Their Habitat
https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2019/11/23/koalas-functionally-extinct-after-australia-bushfires-destroy-80-of-their-habitat/amp/

As Australia experiences record-breaking drought and bushfires, koala populations have dwindled along with their habitat, leaving them “functionally extinct.”

The chairman of the Australian Koala Foundation, Deborah Tabart, estimates that over 1,000 koalas have been killed from the fires and that 80 percent of their habitat has been destroyed.

Functional extinction is when a population becomes so limited that they no longer play a significant role in their ecosystem and the population becomes no longer viable. While some individuals could reproduce, the limited number of koalas makes the long-term viability of the species unlikely and highly susceptible to disease.

Deforestation and bushfires destroy the main nutrient source of koalas, the eucalyptus tree. An adult koala will eat up to 2 pounds of eucalyptus leaves per day as its main staple of nutrients. While eucalyptus plants will grow back after a fire, it will take months, leaving no suitable food source for koalas and starvation a likely scenario for many.

[Aporia_filia]

This is another clear consequence of wild capitalism. The article and the theory are from 2006, but its goodness is more evident day after day.

https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.0040415

"Standard economic theory predicts that exploitation alone is unlikely to result in species extinction because of the escalating costs of finding the last individuals of a declining species. We argue that the human predisposition to place exaggerated value on rarity fuels disproportionate exploitation of rare species, rendering them even rarer and thus more desirable, ultimately leading them into an extinction vortex. Here we present a simple mathematical model and various empirical examples to show how the value attributed to rarity in some human activities could precipitate the extinction of rare species—a concept that we term the anthropogenic Allee effect. The alarming finding that human perception of rarity can precipitate species extinction has serious implications for the conservation of species that are rare or that may become so, be they charismatic and emblematic or simply likely to become fashionable for certain activities."

What is the value of a huge brain that can use abstract ideas if in real world it behaves like this???

[TerryM]

'What is the value of a huge brain that can use abstract ideas if in real world it behaves like this???'


They have became very rare and are close to extinction ~ since the time that Sapiens mixed with Neanderthal.

No links, but the brain case of modern sapiens has atrophied bunches since that era.

Terry

[nanning]

Interesting Aporia_Filia.
Iconic animals and rare animals are a 'white spot' in the media. The white spot blacks out everything else. People generally don't see anything else of 'value'. Trying to save iconic animals but at the same time performing severe atrocities in industrial pig 'farms'.

"What is the value of a huge brain that can use abstract ideas if in real world it behaves like this?"
Civilisation is not the same as humanity! Please don't forget that. It is very important for a fair and correct worldview .

[kassy]

Standard economic theory predicts that exploitation alone is unlikely to result in species extinction because of the escalating costs of finding the last individuals of a declining species.

But sometimes you do not need to find the last individuals because you just wreck their habitat.
Or you kill them before you even find them.
Or you did not want it too but it just burned because the world got a bit hotter and local failures in management did not help. So long and thanks for all the leafs signed by the functionally extinct koalas.

Here they are not really thinking of the supply chain and what might limit it.

[Tor Bejnar]

... but at the same time performing severe atrocities in industrial pig 'farms'.

Not in Florida!
The Florida Constitution, Article X, Section 21:

SECTION 21. Limiting cruel and inhumane confinement of pigs during pregnancy.—Inhumane treatment of animals is a concern of Florida citizens. To prevent cruelty to certain animals and as recommended by The Humane Society of the United States, the people of the State of Florida hereby limit the cruel and inhumane confinement of pigs during pregnancy as provided herein.
(a) It shall be unlawful for any person to confine a pig during pregnancy in an enclosure, or to tether a pig during pregnancy, on a farm in such a way that she is prevented from turning around freely.
... [lots of details]

OK, so we only limit cruel and inhumane confinement of pregnant gilts and sows.

[Aporia_filia]

The chill of reality. UBC ecological economist William E. Rees, co-creator of the ecological footprint concept, has some bad news for techno-optimists.
 I find his views very realistic, as he wants to be:

https://stanford.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=88e1f9157b8a1070712b4dd12&id=54d87b4ae2&e=abc543e6fa

https://stanford.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=88e1f9157b8a1070712b4dd12&id=15590030f3&e=abc543e6fa

https://stanford.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=88e1f9157b8a1070712b4dd12&id=962935c6c4&e=abc543e6fa

[Aporia_filia]

You are very right, Kassy.
Was that because the standard economic theory has been completely blind to natural resources?
Has the world changed that much in 13 years?

[Tor Bejnar]

The chill of reality. UBC ecological economist William E. Rees, co-creator of the ecological footprint concept, has some bad news for techno-optimists.
 I find his views very realistic, as he wants to be:

https://stanford.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=88e1f9157b8a1070712b4dd12&id=54d87b4ae2&e=abc543e6fa
...

Compelling summary of our behavior and its consequences.

[vox_mundi]

Losing Nemo: Clownfish 'Cannot Adapt to Climate Change'
https://phys.org/news/2019-11-nemo-clownfish-climate.html

... "The reproductive success of a population is what guarantees (its ability) to adapt," CNRS researcher Benoit Poujol told AFP.

And clownfish have a "very particular" reproductive cycle, dependent on a stable, benign environment.

Each anemone is home to one female fish, a sexually active male and several other males who are not sexually active.

"When the female dies, the male becomes female and the largest of the non-sexually active males became sexually active," Poujol said.

"The clownfish does not have the genetic variation which will allow it to modify its reproduction (method) if there are environmental constraints."



... Under 2C of warming coral, and the vital ecosystems it supports, would be virtually wiped out.

[Tom_Mazanec]

You mean Nemo is doomed!?

[vox_mundi]

[vox_mundi]

Nine Climate Tipping Points Now 'Active,' Warn Scientists
https://phys.org/news/2019-11-climate-scientists.html

"A decade ago we identified a suite of potential tipping points in the Earth system, now we see evidence that over half of them have been activated," said lead author Professor Tim Lenton, director of the Global Systems Institute at the University of Exeter.



This threatens the loss of the Amazon rainforest and the great ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland, which are currently undergoing measurable and unprecedented changes much earlier than expected.

This "cascade" of changes sparked by global warming could threaten the existence of human civilisations.

Evidence is mounting that these events are more likely and more interconnected than was previously thought, leading to a possible domino effect.

... we must admit that we have underestimated the risks of unleashing irreversible changes, where the planet self-amplifies global warming.

"This is what we now start seeing, already at 1°C global warming.

"The growing threat of rapid, irreversible changes means it is no longer responsible to wait and see. The situation is urgent and we need an emergency response."



Exiting the fossil fuel economy is unlikely before 2050, but with temperature already at 1.1°C above pre-industrial temperature, it is likely Earth will cross the 1.5°C guardrail by 2040. The authors conclude this alone defines an emergency.

... "The situation is an emergency if both risk and urgency are high. If reaction time is longer than the intervention time left (τ / T > 1), we have lost control."

Open Access: Timothy M. Lenton, et.al. Comment: Climate tipping points—too risky to bet against, Nature (2019)

[dnem]

The chill of reality. UBC ecological economist William E. Rees, co-creator of the ecological footprint concept, has some bad news for techno-optimists.
 I find his views very realistic, as he wants to be:

https://stanford.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=88e1f9157b8a1070712b4dd12&id=54d87b4ae2&e=abc543e6fa

https://stanford.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=88e1f9157b8a1070712b4dd12&id=15590030f3&e=abc543e6fa

I was going to post these myself.  I find Rees to be one of the most rational communicators of our human predicament. I highly recommend everyone read these pieces.

[vox_mundi]

Australia's Threatened Birds Declined 59% Over the Past 30 Years
https://phys.org/news/2019-12-australia-threatened-birds-declined-years.html



Australia's threatened birds declined by nearly 60% on average over 30 years, according to new research that reveals the true impact on native wildlife of habitat loss, introduced pests, and other human-caused pressures.

Alarmingly, migratory shorebirds have declined by 72%. Many of these species inhabit mudflats and coasts on their migration from Siberia, Alaska or China each year.

These concerning figures are revealed in the world-first Threatened Bird Index. The index, now updated with its second year of data, combines over 400,000 surveys at more than 17,000 locations.



Jeremy S. Simmonds et al. A composite measure of habitat loss for entire assemblages of species, Conservation Biology (2019)

[vox_mundi]

Ancient DNA Confirms Humans Wiped Out Northern Hemisphere's Version of the Penguin
https://phys.org/news/2019-12-ancient-dna-humans-northern-hemisphere.html

The North Atlantic was once home to a bird that bore a remarkable similarity to penguins. The great auk, also known as "the original penguin", was a large, flightless, black and white bird, that is said to have existed in the millions. Despite its appearance, the great auk is actually a relative of razorbills and puffins, not of penguins. However, since around 1844, the northern hemisphere has been without its version of the penguin and it looks like we are to blame.

The great auk had long provided humans with a source of meat and eggs. But from around 1500, hunting dramatically intensified when Europeans discovered the rich fishing grounds of Newfoundland. Within 350 years, the last great auks ever reliably seen were killed to be put in a museum, and the species was lost forever.

In our recent study, my colleagues and I found no evidence that the great auk was already in decline or at risk of extinction prior to the intensive hunting. This suggests that no other factors were at play in their demise and human hunting pressure alone was enough to cause their extinction. ...



Open Access: Jessica E Thomas, et.al. Demographic reconstruction from ancient DNA supports rapid extinction of the great auk

[nanning]

But from around 1500, hunting dramatically intensified when Europeans discovered the rich fishing grounds of Newfoundland. Within 350 years, the last great auks ever reliably seen were killed to be put in a museum, and the species was lost forever.

Civilisation arrived  .

[Tor Bejnar]

"Civilization" arrived.   

[nanning]

The humming of Christmas beetles was once a sign of the season. Where have they gone?

It’s an emotional time to be an entomologist, as ecological diversity that once existed slips away

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/23/the-humming-of-christmas-beetles-was-once-a-sign-of-the-season-where-have-they-gone
  by Jeff Sparrow


He cites an anecdote from the butterfly collector SG Castle Russell who, in 1892, reported such a proliferation of insects in England’s New Forest that he could barely see ahead, with two sweeps of his net securing more than a hundred specimens.

We don’t see butterflies in swarms like that – and nor do we think that we should.

Hence the phenomenon noted by oceanographer Loren McClenachan, in which historical photos taken in Key West since 1956 show generations of anglers posing proudly with ever-smaller catches.

We adapt our expectations to the current reality, forgetting that not so long ago the natural world looked startlingly different.

“[The] big fish that used to be abundant … aren’t anymore,” says McClenachan, “and that’s happened really, really quickly.”

Many Australians don’t realise that the land near modern Melbourne once resembled, as Tim Flannery puts it, “a temperate Kakadu”, in which a shockingly blue lake teemed with swans, ducks, brolgas, magpie-geese, Cape Barren geese and other migratory birds.

Arriving in Sydney with the First Fleet, the surgeon Arthur Bowes Smyth wrote in wonderment of how “the singing of various birds among the trees, and the flight of the numerous parakeets, lorikeets, cockatoos and macaws, made all around appear like an enchantment”.

In Hobart in 1804 the clergyman Robert Knopwood complained about the whales that disturbed locals with their bellowing and so crowded the local rivers as to make navigation by boat difficult.

“I’ve been talking about this a lot with colleagues,” Reid says. “One of the classic plants for insects in Australia is tea tree. And about this time of year, tea trees are flowing in abundance and there’s normally clouds of insects all over them. And we’re not seeing that.”

[Sebastian Jones]

But from around 1500, hunting dramatically intensified when Europeans discovered the rich fishing grounds of Newfoundland. Within 350 years, the last great auks ever reliably seen were killed to be put in a museum, and the species was lost forever.

Civilisation arrived  .

Even had we not hunted the Great Auk to extinction by the early 19th century, it would likely be facing the same fate now because we have so depleted the oceans of fish that most of the Great Auk's relatives are rapidly declining.

[nanning]

Yes Sebastian, civilisation arrived. Who do you think took all the fish?

[kassy]

This summer i basically saw none of the little fruit flies that usually hover around the trash cans in summer. Not sure if that is because we clean them out at least daily now (because we throw ever more trash away, so much plastic packaging these days) or some other reason.

We also used to have these annoying flies that like to hoover around cycling lanes at basically face height but nearly none this year. Drove into one swarm after a wet spell end of summer.

(And since it is a spring like december i noticed a swarm of those near a minor canal not too long ago...).

[gerontocrat]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/13/un-draft-plan-sets-2030-target-to-avert-earths-sixth-mass-extinction-aoe
UN draft plan sets 2030 target to avert Earth's sixth mass extinction

Paris-style proposal to counter loss of ecosystems and wildlife vital to the future of humanity will go before October summit[/b]
Almost a third of the world’s oceans and land should be protected by the end of the decade to stop and reverse biodiversity decline that risks the survival of humanity, according to a draft Paris-style UN agreement on nature.

To combat what scientists have described as the sixth mass extinction event in Earth’s history, the proposal sets a 2030 deadline for the conservation and restoration of ecosystems and wildlife that perform crucial services for humans.

The text, drafted by the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, is expected to be adopted by governments in October at a crucial UN summit in the Chinese city of Kunming. It comes after countries largely failed to meet targets for the previous decade agreed in Aichi, Japan, in 2010.

As well as calling for a commitment to protect at least 30% of the planet, the 20-point draft plan, which has been likened to the 2015 Paris agreement on the climate crisis, aims to introduce controls on invasive species and reduce pollution from plastic waste and excess nutrients by 50%.

[Tom_Mazanec]

Goo, gerontocrat, but it will be AGW that will likely cause the Sixth Great Dying, not land use by a species whose population growth is slowing.

[Tom_Mazanec]

Climate change is killing one of nature's most famous survivalists
https://www.inverse.com/article/62292-climate-change-could-kill-tardigrades

Tardigrades are a lesson in survival skills. These tiny creatures can withstand extreme conditions — from space radiation to being frozen for decades.


Their hardiness inspires hope for post-apocalyptic life and the future of space travel. But new research suggests all is not well for the microscopic invertebrates here on Earth. Space radiation and freezing might not kill them, but our warming planet might be too hot to handle.

[kassy]

Well i sure did not see that one coming...

Temp ranges cited in the article above:
Among non-acclimated active tardigrades (Ramazzottius varieornatus, a species of tardigrade found in transient freshwater habitats) , a temperature of 37.1 degrees Celsius tended to prove lethal. For acclimated tardigrades, the fatal temperature was slightly higher, at 37.6 degrees Celsius. Denmark’s current maximum temperature is just 36.4 degrees Celsius — that’s not much of a difference to the lethal temperature, suggesting tardigrades may be especially vulnerable to a warming Earth.

[nanning]

      Huge ‘hot blob’ in Pacific Ocean killed nearly a million seabirds

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/16/hot-blob-ocean-seabirds-killed-new-zealand-north-america
  by Kenya Evelyn


Excerpts:

    Thousands of bodies washed up on North America’s Pacific coast
    Study finds common murres probably died of starvation

Alaska saw the most birds wash up. In Prince William Sound in southern Alaska, more than 4,500 bird carcasses were found every kilometer, or 0.62 miles.

The blob stems from a years-long severe marine heatwave, believed to be caused by an anticyclone weather system that first appeared in 2013. The weather phenomenon known as El Niño accelerated the warming temperatures beginning in 2015 and, by 2016, the rising heat resulted in water temperatures nearly 11F (6C) above average.


Researchers also uncovered other effects, including a vast bloom of harmful algae along the US west coast that cost fisheries millions of dollars in revenue. Other animals also died off, including sea lions, tufted puffins and baleen whales.

“Think of it as a run on the grocery stores at the same time that the delivery trucks to the stores stopped coming so often,” Julia Parrish, a co-author of the study and UW professor in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, said in a press release.


“The magnitude and scale of this failure has no precedent,” said John Piatt, the lead researcher. “It was astonishing and alarming, and a red-flag warning about the tremendous impact sustained ocean warming can have on the marine ecosystem.”

Meanwhile, another huge heat blob has formed off the Washington coast and up into the Gulf of Alaska, and is growing.