We are all familiar with the stark array of graphs – carbon emissions, deforestation, water scarcity, overfishing – that detail how we are sapping the Earth’s resources and resilience. This 2012 edition of the Living Planet Report tells us how it all adds up – the cumulative pressure we’re putting…
The researchers noted when crows turned their heads towards the sound of a familiar voiceCrows recognise familiar human voices and the calls of familiar birds from other species, say researchers.
The ability could help the intelligent birds to thrive in urban environments; using vocal cues from their human and avian neighbours to find food or be alerted to potential threats.
The team used recordings of human voices and jackdaw calls to test the birds’ responses.
They published the findings in the journal Animal Cognition.
Lead researcher Claudia Wascher from the University of Vienna said that, although it was widely known that crows were “very intelligent”, most studies had focused on their ability to recognise and communicate with their own species.
“In cities crows live alongside jackdaws, magpies and seagulls, and alongside humans,” Dr Wascher told BBC Nature.
“Some of those people might be very nice to the crows and feed them and others might be nasty and chase them away.
“You even get some people hunting crows.
To find out if they might be able to distinguish between these different birds and humans, the researchers studied eight carrion crows kept in the university’s aviary.
Click title to read more.Hah! Validation! I have a group of crows that live around my house and I feed them on a regular basis. When ever I feed them I normally call out “Crows, food, come and get it” and even if there are no crows in site within minutes the whole murder is in my yard.
I thought this was an interesting article! I love gardening (most of the time, haha). There’s just something about being connected to the earth and your food that is so amazing.
Envisioning California’s Delta As it Was
“The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is at the heart of California’s water supply. This inland delta, where two major rivers converge and mingle with San Francisco Bay tides, has been re-engineered and re-plumbed over the last 160 years to meet the needs of a growing state.
Little is known about the Delta as it once was. Now, as efforts get underway to save the Delta’s failing ecosystem, researchers at the San Francisco Estuary Institute are reconstructing this complex landscape using thousands of historical sources.”
View this interactive map that shows the changing landscape of the Delta here. This data visualization was a collaboration between KQED QUEST, Stanford’s Bill Lane Center for the American West and the scientists at the San Francisco Estuary Institute.
If frogs go extinct, you’ll notice.
Perfect! Really the reason you should care about anything going extinct.
“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.” - John Muir
A thought invoking piece on the ethics of food systems highlighting how eating vegetarian or vegan can be just as unethical as eating meat. What I think is most valuable about Jay Bost’s perspective is that Solar energy is the root to all food systems (including petrochemical ones) and that “death begets life on this planet.”
“For me, eating meat is ethical when one does three things. First, you accept the biological reality that death begets life on this planet and that all life (including us!) is really just solar energy temporarily stored in an impermanent form. Second, you combine this realization with that cherished human trait of compassion and choose ethically raised food, vegetable, grain and/or meat. And third, you give thanks.”—-Jay Bost
“For me, eating meat is ethical when one does three things. First, you accept the biological reality that death begets life on this planet and that all life (including us!) is really just solar energy temporarily stored in an impermanent form. Second, you combine this realization with that cherished human trait of compassion and choose ethically raised food, vegetable, grain and/or meat. And third, you give thanks.”—-Jay Bost
