Animal Slaughter and Cruelty on the Highways (Animal Rights) (global warming, regular, suspect)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Last night we drove home from just north of Albany to just north of New York City. The toll on wildlife, that is, literally thousands of our winged friends of all species was horrendous. Not only is the automobile causing terrible amounts of global warming; it is harming wildlife diversity. We need to, at the very least, terminate unnecessary automobile trips.
Last night we drove home from just north of Albany to just north of New York City. The toll on wildlife, that is, literally thousands of our winged friends of all species was horrendous. Not only is the automobile causing terrible amounts of global warming; it is harming wildlife diversity. We need to, at the very least, terminate unnecessary automobile trips.
Survival of the fittest, those birds need to evolve in order to survive. That's what we've done, evolved to the top of the food chain. We now eat birds and run them over in cars, choke them on our smog, and raise them in farms. Used to be the other way around when birds were dinosaurs... they were king. It's a shame global warming made them all extinct and they had to start over at the bottom. I wish them all luck on their evolutionary quest. In the meantime, I'm still going to eat fried chicken.
Yes it sucks when an animal is killed by vehicles. Strangely enough the animal population seems to be doing fine despite this carnage. Is it "cruelty"? Nope. Very few people go out of their way to hit an animal in the road; most of the time it is unavoidable.
I drive once a week to town and have always favored flying for any trip over 4 hours by car. I am sure the planes I ride on kill a fair number of birds over the course of a year. I earn a living from home but there is no doubt the electricity I consume has killed a fair amount of wildlife.
I think you may have a perspective problem. You see dead animals on the roadway without knowing what percentage of the total population they represent. I regularly see deer, turkey, hawks, turtles, snakes and other wildlife on my property that are unlikely to EVER be killed by a car.
If you feel better walking to your destinations more power to you. BTW- "Thousands" of birds? I suspect a bit of exaggeration in that. It's 156 miles from Albany to NYC +/- . Are you saying you saw over 12 dead birds per mile? Maybe that area needs some more buzzards?
Why are thousands of birds congregating on the highway and not other places?
That's a hard question for anyone who's not a bird biologist to answer.
But as adaptable as birds are as a species, no species may be able to adapt quickly enough to survive rapid global climate change.
The Earth is all one big piece. When the seas collapse and everything in them dies, the dying will escalate on the land. When the land species begin to collapse, the population in the seas will wither.
When enough creatures die, their gene pool becomes smaller and smaller, and so its ability to adapt to becomes less and less. Not every creature has the same amount of adaptability within any species. That's why species find their many niches in Earth's ecology.
Humans are no different in this than any other creature. If extinction can happen to birds, it can happen to us, because we are all just smaller parts of one big piece. Once one niche fails, another will follow, and another. Each will escalate all the others that remain.
Last night we drove home from just north of Albany to just north of New York City. The toll on wildlife, that is, literally thousands of our winged friends of all species was horrendous. Not only is the automobile causing terrible amounts of global warming; it is harming wildlife diversity. We need to, at the very least, terminate unnecessary automobile trips.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
44,585 posts, read 81,243,006 times
Reputation: 57825
It’s unfortunate, but humans are still the most important creatures to humans, so we will continue to drive. Some places are worse than others, but other than trying to be more observant there is not much that can be done to keep the animals from being hit. Perhaps they should stop damaging our cars?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
