Trash Birds
Illustrations
Illustrations
" Every yearabout 300 million people produce 3.5 pounds of trash a day. Birds have becomeso used to human trash that they frequent dumping sites for food. Many birdsdie from ingesting trash or trash getting stuck in their legs, wings, or aroundtheir necks. Many of us are accustomed to the old picture of a bird with aplastic soda can wrapper stuck around its neck, but today, the problemscontinue so much more in depth than that.
"Unfortunately,Freshkills Park isn’t what Fresh Kills landfill once was to bird-watchers.'There used to be more birds when it was a dump,' said Susan Fowler, an officeadministrator, told The New York Times. Strange, isn’t it? You would thinkthat the transformation into a massive park and wetlands would bring more birdsto the area. What the park conversion actually did was successfully eradicatethe bird’s food source." (http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/stories/birds-love-trash-heaps-more-than-parks)
Soundpollution is common for birds to struggle with. Many birds change their songsto compete or replicate human noise. Those birds who can't adapt to human noiselevels usually are unable to mate and reproduce.
"Scientistshave discovered that blackbirds living in urban areas have begun to mimic caralarms, ambulance sirens, cell phone ring tones, and even the sound of golfcarts. In addition to mimicking urban noise, some species of birds are alsochanging the frequency of their calls, increasing the volume of calls, andchanging the time of day for their song."(http://www.suite101.com/content/bird-calls-are-changing-in-response-to-human-produced-noise-a243883)
Lightpollution is another factor in bird's issues with human kind. Many birds usethe moon and stars to navigate when migrating or moving at night, but whenbright lights from cities and other various light sources are present, birdscan become confused.
"'Whenthey fly through a brightly-lit area, they become disoriented,' said MichaelMesure, executive director of the Fatal Light Awareness Program (FLAP), aToronto-based environmental organization. The birds often crash intobrilliantly-lit broadcast towers or buildings, or circle them until they drop fromexhaustion."(http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/04/0417_030417_tvlightpollution.html)
Many of ushave become desensitized to the pictures of cranes and pelicans covered in oil.In the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989, it was recorded about 225,000 birds diedfrom carelessness of human oil drilling.(http://magblog.audubon.org/how-many-birds-died-bp-oil-spill) Other birds endup ingesting mercury from human pollution in waters, or even arsenic fromcareless disposal of batteries.
Huge manmadedisasters can ruin habitats for many animals, and we must not forget noteworthyevents formed by carelessness. The Chernobyl explosion of 1986 left almosttwenty miles around Chernobyl reactor 4 completely uninhabitable by anythingfor many years. Even more than twenty years after the explosion, man cannotstep within that radius. However, many life forms have returned to the area,but the disastrous affects are still felt today. Many birds exposed toChernobyl's radiation end up with smaller brains than normal birds. Other birdsdo not live as long as normal birds, and have suffered a number of birthdefects and abnormalities such as extra or deformed beaks, toes, abnormalcoloring, bones, and feathers.(http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/04/070418-chernobyl-birds.html)
With thisproject, I intend to bring light to all of the affects mankind's pollutionbrings to the bird world. The significance of the gas mask in humans is thepresence of something deadly, and to fit a bird with that same kind of ideashows that the bird cannot and will not survive if not properly taken care of.I feel like fitting a bird with a gas mask would be mankind's way of fixing theproblem; instead of stopping the destruction of the environment, man wouldsimply take the non-finger pointing route, saying, "Well it wasn't I whocaused all this death and destruction, and there was nothing we could doto stop it, so instead, here, get in line and have a gas mask." "
"Unfortunately,Freshkills Park isn’t what Fresh Kills landfill once was to bird-watchers.'There used to be more birds when it was a dump,' said Susan Fowler, an officeadministrator, told The New York Times. Strange, isn’t it? You would thinkthat the transformation into a massive park and wetlands would bring more birdsto the area. What the park conversion actually did was successfully eradicatethe bird’s food source." (http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/stories/birds-love-trash-heaps-more-than-parks)
Soundpollution is common for birds to struggle with. Many birds change their songsto compete or replicate human noise. Those birds who can't adapt to human noiselevels usually are unable to mate and reproduce.
"Scientistshave discovered that blackbirds living in urban areas have begun to mimic caralarms, ambulance sirens, cell phone ring tones, and even the sound of golfcarts. In addition to mimicking urban noise, some species of birds are alsochanging the frequency of their calls, increasing the volume of calls, andchanging the time of day for their song."(http://www.suite101.com/content/bird-calls-are-changing-in-response-to-human-produced-noise-a243883)
Lightpollution is another factor in bird's issues with human kind. Many birds usethe moon and stars to navigate when migrating or moving at night, but whenbright lights from cities and other various light sources are present, birdscan become confused.
"'Whenthey fly through a brightly-lit area, they become disoriented,' said MichaelMesure, executive director of the Fatal Light Awareness Program (FLAP), aToronto-based environmental organization. The birds often crash intobrilliantly-lit broadcast towers or buildings, or circle them until they drop fromexhaustion."(http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/04/0417_030417_tvlightpollution.html)
Many of ushave become desensitized to the pictures of cranes and pelicans covered in oil.In the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989, it was recorded about 225,000 birds diedfrom carelessness of human oil drilling.(http://magblog.audubon.org/how-many-birds-died-bp-oil-spill) Other birds endup ingesting mercury from human pollution in waters, or even arsenic fromcareless disposal of batteries.
Huge manmadedisasters can ruin habitats for many animals, and we must not forget noteworthyevents formed by carelessness. The Chernobyl explosion of 1986 left almosttwenty miles around Chernobyl reactor 4 completely uninhabitable by anythingfor many years. Even more than twenty years after the explosion, man cannotstep within that radius. However, many life forms have returned to the area,but the disastrous affects are still felt today. Many birds exposed toChernobyl's radiation end up with smaller brains than normal birds. Other birdsdo not live as long as normal birds, and have suffered a number of birthdefects and abnormalities such as extra or deformed beaks, toes, abnormalcoloring, bones, and feathers.(http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/04/070418-chernobyl-birds.html)
With thisproject, I intend to bring light to all of the affects mankind's pollutionbrings to the bird world. The significance of the gas mask in humans is thepresence of something deadly, and to fit a bird with that same kind of ideashows that the bird cannot and will not survive if not properly taken care of.I feel like fitting a bird with a gas mask would be mankind's way of fixing theproblem; instead of stopping the destruction of the environment, man wouldsimply take the non-finger pointing route, saying, "Well it wasn't I whocaused all this death and destruction, and there was nothing we could doto stop it, so instead, here, get in line and have a gas mask." "
