linkspam and birds
New icon courtesy of 
rydra_wong! Seems fitting.
OK, this is cool and hopeful: a new technology for dealing with oil spills.
This is a fab resource for fic- and genre-writers, I believe.
At times they sounded like villains from a Michael Crichton novel. Russian scientists fight to save the earth from climate change by restoring the Pleistocene grasslands in the Siberian Arctic. This includes re-establishing herds of bison, musk oxen, wild horses -- and woolly mammoths. These Russians are bringing back the ice age to protect the future.
You might need to see this toad with a hat.
You might also need to see the art for this awesome mashup.
*
Politics is all moving too fast to keep up! Argh. Also, eeps.
A few political links:
People Power.
TaxMarch
Resist repeal of the ACA.
Resist Bot.
*
I rarely get into professional stuff here, but I thought I’d share something today. I spent part of this week in training, learning how to comply with the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. What’s that, you say?
Once upon a time, North America had more birds than anyone could comprehend, much less count. Passenger pigeons were not the only birds that were found in vast numbers nearly everywhere, and it was accepted wisdom that nothing human beings could do would ever harm birds as entire species. There were so many of them, after all.
So when the fashion in women’s hats turned to the use of flamboyant feathers, it was no big deal when commercial hunters began using methods of mass bird slaughter that would shock your conscience. Birds were killed for eating and because they were thought to steal crops, but many were killed solely for their feathers.
And there were no controls, no rules in many states: hunting went on day and night, using poison, nets, and any type of guns the hunters chose to use. This site has some drawings from the time.
As a result, the passenger pigeon, which had numbered well into the billions, was extinct by 1914. Several other species predeceased the pigeon, such as the Great Auk, which was a large seabird similar to a penguin; and the only parrot indigenous to the US.
People began to notice, eventually, and thanks in part to some wealthy women in Boston who founded what became the Audubon Society, Congress passed a set of laws forbidding interstate sale of migratory birds and hunting during nesting season. The states challenged the law, and it was found unconstitutional (because the Commerce Clause wasn’t considered a sound basis for federal regulation at that time).
So the US in 1916 entered into a treaty with Great Britain (on behalf of Canada), forbidding hunting and commercial sale of non-game birds, and committing to protecting species considered to be migratory. Because a treaty with another country is within Congressional authority, Congress could then pass laws to implement the terms of the treaty - which is how we get the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918.
Since then, the US has entered treaties with Japan, Mexico, and Russia, and the list of protected migratory birds has grown to over 1000 (it’s regularly updated).
Because of the MBTA, and other environmental laws like the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act, we actually still have species like the whooping crane, which certainly would have been hunted to extinction for its feathers, and the California Brown Pelican, which was threatened by DDT and considered a competitor by many fishermen-and which has been removed from the Endangered Species List because it has recovered much of its population in the last 30 years.
None of this would have been possible without a federal government committed to protecting the resources of the entire country. Migratory birds know no borders, and even if one state had forbidden commercial hunting, another would have fostered it for the economic benefit it brought (in the short term). Commercial hunters had no interest in preserving any given species, because any bird they didn’t shoot today would be shot tomorrow by a hunter the next state over. It was a classic case of the Tragedy of the Commons, and the only solution was federal control.
As a result, it is now illegal to kill, injure, hunt, or trap most non-game birds in the US. You cannot own feathers, eggs, or nests (even ones you find empty) without a permit. Game birds like ducks can be hunted with state or federal permits, but don’t ever try to list a taxidermied duck on eBay - you may get a visit from the Law Enforcement branch of Fish and Wildlife.
The states cried bloody murder when the MBTA was passed, and yet nowadays you don’t hear a lot of people complaining about how horrible it is that you’re not allowed to kill the cardinal who cheeps outside your bedroom window. People got used to it, and in fact grew to appreciate the benefits (for the most part). Mining companies and energy developers have problems with the MBTA, but so far nobody has managed to get it repealed or even significantly weakened: the public benefit is simply far too obvious.
Anyway, that’s my little lecture about how the administrative state is responsible for saving tens of millions of birds nationwide.
Crossposted from DW, where there are
comments; comment here or there.
rydra_wong! Seems fitting.
OK, this is cool and hopeful: a new technology for dealing with oil spills.
This is a fab resource for fic- and genre-writers, I believe.
At times they sounded like villains from a Michael Crichton novel. Russian scientists fight to save the earth from climate change by restoring the Pleistocene grasslands in the Siberian Arctic. This includes re-establishing herds of bison, musk oxen, wild horses -- and woolly mammoths. These Russians are bringing back the ice age to protect the future.
You might need to see this toad with a hat.
You might also need to see the art for this awesome mashup.
*
Politics is all moving too fast to keep up! Argh. Also, eeps.
A few political links:
People Power.
TaxMarch
Resist repeal of the ACA.
Resist Bot.
*
I rarely get into professional stuff here, but I thought I’d share something today. I spent part of this week in training, learning how to comply with the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. What’s that, you say?
Once upon a time, North America had more birds than anyone could comprehend, much less count. Passenger pigeons were not the only birds that were found in vast numbers nearly everywhere, and it was accepted wisdom that nothing human beings could do would ever harm birds as entire species. There were so many of them, after all.
So when the fashion in women’s hats turned to the use of flamboyant feathers, it was no big deal when commercial hunters began using methods of mass bird slaughter that would shock your conscience. Birds were killed for eating and because they were thought to steal crops, but many were killed solely for their feathers.
And there were no controls, no rules in many states: hunting went on day and night, using poison, nets, and any type of guns the hunters chose to use. This site has some drawings from the time.
As a result, the passenger pigeon, which had numbered well into the billions, was extinct by 1914. Several other species predeceased the pigeon, such as the Great Auk, which was a large seabird similar to a penguin; and the only parrot indigenous to the US.
People began to notice, eventually, and thanks in part to some wealthy women in Boston who founded what became the Audubon Society, Congress passed a set of laws forbidding interstate sale of migratory birds and hunting during nesting season. The states challenged the law, and it was found unconstitutional (because the Commerce Clause wasn’t considered a sound basis for federal regulation at that time).
So the US in 1916 entered into a treaty with Great Britain (on behalf of Canada), forbidding hunting and commercial sale of non-game birds, and committing to protecting species considered to be migratory. Because a treaty with another country is within Congressional authority, Congress could then pass laws to implement the terms of the treaty - which is how we get the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918.
Since then, the US has entered treaties with Japan, Mexico, and Russia, and the list of protected migratory birds has grown to over 1000 (it’s regularly updated).
Because of the MBTA, and other environmental laws like the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act, we actually still have species like the whooping crane, which certainly would have been hunted to extinction for its feathers, and the California Brown Pelican, which was threatened by DDT and considered a competitor by many fishermen-and which has been removed from the Endangered Species List because it has recovered much of its population in the last 30 years.
None of this would have been possible without a federal government committed to protecting the resources of the entire country. Migratory birds know no borders, and even if one state had forbidden commercial hunting, another would have fostered it for the economic benefit it brought (in the short term). Commercial hunters had no interest in preserving any given species, because any bird they didn’t shoot today would be shot tomorrow by a hunter the next state over. It was a classic case of the Tragedy of the Commons, and the only solution was federal control.
As a result, it is now illegal to kill, injure, hunt, or trap most non-game birds in the US. You cannot own feathers, eggs, or nests (even ones you find empty) without a permit. Game birds like ducks can be hunted with state or federal permits, but don’t ever try to list a taxidermied duck on eBay - you may get a visit from the Law Enforcement branch of Fish and Wildlife.
The states cried bloody murder when the MBTA was passed, and yet nowadays you don’t hear a lot of people complaining about how horrible it is that you’re not allowed to kill the cardinal who cheeps outside your bedroom window. People got used to it, and in fact grew to appreciate the benefits (for the most part). Mining companies and energy developers have problems with the MBTA, but so far nobody has managed to get it repealed or even significantly weakened: the public benefit is simply far too obvious.
Anyway, that’s my little lecture about how the administrative state is responsible for saving tens of millions of birds nationwide.
Crossposted from DW, where there are
comments; comment here or there.