I'm glad you guys still make me laugh even when I have to post depressing things! 😅
I don't know very much on Hinduism or India in general honestly, but much like with the US, Europe, or wherever we are, we dont need to look far to find a combination of rich people or wannabe rich people ignoring religion for profit and also poor people forced to compromise beliefs to earn a living.
I do recall recent protests by farmers there due to really damaging farm bills, so I dont think the actual farmers there rank high socially or politically.
It's important to remember the vast majority of people anywhere are decent, they are just getting screwed by that small percentage that doesn't care. I'm sure most of us work for some less than ideal employer, but we don't always need to get judged by that, we're just trying to make a buck too. There's about a million things I'd rather be before Indian dairy farmer comes up, so I'm not going to judge them here. It seems like a hard, hot, nasty job, with little economic benefit to most people involved.
Those pharma people though, and any big ag operation still skirting the rules once the science was out, drag them through the mud all you want though.
I don't want to come off as insensitive, so I'll try to phrase things carefully.
If you have even the slightest spare money per pay period, like $30, and a 401k or 403b is offered to you, you really need to do it.
That money comes out of your check before taxes, so you will be investing more money than what actually comes out of your check. By deduction 6% of a $15/hr full time job, you're putting in $36, but your paycheck will only go down about $30-free money!
Many places will match you some, say half of that first 6%, so now you're saving $54 while only being out $30. You've almost doubled your money in one week!
Come tax time, you've saved $1872, and you've been given a free $936. It doesn't stop there though, because now you only are paying income tax on $29,328 instead of $31,200. If you get a tax rebate now, you will get even more back!
So now you're saving $2808 a year at age 20. Let's put that in one mutual fund, a SP500 index fund. Over the last 10 years, that has returned 12‰, but let's be conservative and call it 10. If you never make a cent more per hour, by age 65, you will have saved $84,000 and your job has chipped in $42,000, over a year's pay! But with that 10% compound interest, you have $2,000,000! You are a multi-millionaire for $30/wk!
If you get a raise or get a better job in the future, this number can be even higher.
Please keep this in mind. Even if you can't do it now, do it ASAP. Here are the same numbers, but starting at 30 instead of 20.
Still amazing, but seeing this difference is why we older on ones tell you not saving earlier was our big regret.
I hope this was helpful and doesn't get taken as a "pick yourself up by your bootstraps" thing.
The ignoring the science part for sure is bad, especially by the manufacturers. But they have probably also saved many human lives by providing more and cheaper food, which was the point of the hybridization in the article.
There seem to be better all around alternatives now, though maybe not as cheap or well known yet.
Hopefully they will continue to replace this old drug and the vultures may someday bounce back.
Science is wonderful, but when we use it for greed, it can become quite terrible as well.
Very interesting!
In return, here is one of my comments from a while back about how birds can generate some of their own water!
So this got me to do a quick read on owl drinking…
Owls don’t typically drink, though they can if they want to or need to due to excessive heat or lack of food.
Their water requirements are typically achieved just through eating. While eating their food whole does capture a decent amount of water, metabolism releases hydrogen atoms that combine with oxygen in the body to produce what is called “metabolic water.”
While mammals usually only generate enough metabolic water to flush out our urea, making our urine, birds are much more efficient at producing metabolic water, and they also don’t urinate, they release the uric acid directly. That is the white part of a bird poo. Both of these factors allow birds to generate their own water supply sufficient to sustain them under normal circumstances.
This article has the best account of why its use was/is so widespread. Here are some select lines from the article:
The introduction of hybrid cows in India coincided with global trends of the chemicalization of agriculture, medicine, and veterinary science.
In the shadow of antibiotics, diclofenac, a common painkiller also for human use, has become a “blockbuster drug” in more-than-human medicine. High-yielding cows undergo relentless cycles of pregnancy by artificial insemination, birth, and lactation. In India, diclofenac was the drug of choice to treat the many pains of high-performance cows, among them mastitis, a painful inflammation of the udder.
Diclofenac is a cheap, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) and thus within the same class of pharmaceuticals as aspirin (ASS) or ibuprofen.
Diclofenac has been sold since 1973 under the brand name Voltaren as an over-the-counter remedy for arthritis pain in humans and domestic animals. With the end of patent protection, it has become one of the most widely used NSAIDs across the world, and its generics are available in India under a variety of brands.
Human and other mammalian bodies metabolize diclofenac and excrete it via the kidneys and the renal system. Healthy mammalian kidneys can deal with the drug reasonably well. To birds, however, diclofenac is a deadly toxin. Birds who ingest diclofenac die of severe renal failure as the effect of kidney necrosis.
Based on emerging evidence of avian kidney toxicity, scientific and political pressure led to the eventual ban of diclofenac for veterinary use in India in 2006. However, many veterinarians consider diclofenac so important for the care of milk cows that they continue to use the drug illegally by misappropriating drugs designated for human use only. Pharmaceutical companies played along by labeling the liquid 30 ml vials, popular among veterinarians injecting the drug, as multi-dosage preparations for human usage
Hehe bones away!
That's crazy they prefer the bones. It seems like that would have much less nutrition.
No competition does seem like a big advantage though.
Thanks for sharing this!
At first it was a lot of what was in this article and the one from Al Jazeera I shared in the other comment, but then it went on to describe the effect it's having on the Parsis and how the loss of the vultures is ending their religion due to them losing their land due to complaints from the vultures not being able to process the bodies.
It also ended with a note on how now there are adults now that have gone their whole lives without ever seeing a vulture. They hear their parents and grandparents talk about them in relation to their religion, but to the kids they are just another mythic beast like a leviathan, as they've never seen one. That's kind of mind blowing to me, and it's sad to think how many other animals our grandchildren might not remember in the future.
Vultures are not typically aggressive. They don't have the speed and strong talons of other raptors. The great majority of their food is already dead when they eat it. If another predator shows up, they will usually get out of there.
Their look is unconventional, but they are largely designed the only way they can be. If we go by the philosophy of beauty being function over form, it becomes easier to appreciate them.
Their heads are typically bald to avoid parasites and pathogens they would get from sticking their heads inside of some gnarly spaces.
Their legs are also bare, and they wash them with their urea (urohydrosis) to keep them sterile as well, because those feet are also going in the same funk.
Vulture stomach acid also comes in between 0-1 pH, making it 100x as strong as ours. All that bacteria and any parasites are going to be nuked.
So they are basically living, regenerating bio hazard suits that can digest anything. They can eat things contaminated with anthrax and botulism without a care in the world.
Bonus fact: There is a Palm Nut Vulture eats nuts, fruit, and grain in addition to meat.
Of course! That's another good article, so I appreciate you pointing it out.
It really highlights how this isn't something we just learned about, it's something we knew about all along but people ignored it because it was inconvenient to do something about it.
People in the future are really going to reflect pretty negatively of us from the 1900s.
How decline of Indian vultures led to 500,000 human deaths
A new study links the vulture decline in India to deadly bacteria spread, causing about 500,000 deaths.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/17971473
I see this was talked about a few months back in a different article here, but it looks paywalled.
I've made a brief summary here of a new BBC article, and also included some photos of the birds.
> BBC: How decline of Indian vultures led to 500,000 human deaths 25 JUL 2024 > > >More than two decades ago, India’s vultures began dying because of a drug used to treat sick cows. > > > >By the mid-1990s, the 50 million-strong vulture population had plummeted to near zero because of diclofenac, a cheap non-steroidal painkiller for cattle that is fatal to vultures. Birds that fed on carcasses of livestock treated with the drug suffered from kidney failure and died. > > >The unintentional decimation of these heavy, scavenging birds allowed deadly bacteria and infections to proliferate, leading to the deaths of about half a million people over five years, says the study published in the American Economic Association journal. > > >“Vultures are considered nature’s sanitation service because of the important role they play in removing dead animals that contain bacteria and pathogens from our environment - without them, disease can spread,” says the study’s co-author, Eyal Frank, an assistant professor at University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy. > > > >“Understanding the role vultures play in human health underscores the importance of protecting wildlife, and not just the cute and cuddly. They all have a job to do in our ecosystems that impacts our lives.” > > >The authors estimated that between 2000 and 2005, the loss of vultures caused around 100,000 additional human deaths annually, resulting in more than $69bn (£53bn) per year in mortality damages or the economic costs associated with premature deaths. > > > >These deaths were due to the spread of disease and bacteria that vultures would have otherwise removed from the environment. > > >“The vulture collapse in India provides a particularly stark example of the type of hard-to-reverse and unpredictable costs to humans that can come from the loss of a species,” says Mr Sudarshan, an associate professor at the University of Warwick and co-author of the study. > > It is amazing to see what a difference these birds most take for granted contribute to our success as a species. > > Many find vultures to be creepy, but after learning about some of their amazing abilities and understanding why they've evolved to become what they are, they are superbly designed animals that excel at doing a very important job. > > White-rumped vulture (Population loss since 2000: 98%) > > ! > > Indian vulture (Population loss since 2000: 95%) > > ! > > Red-headed vulture (Population loss since 2000: 91%) > > !
Here's a good one from Al Jazeera.
7 Apr 2015
The massive decline in the vulture population across Mumbai and the entire Maharashtra state began from 1992-93 onwards when the Indian government opened this drug for use in livestock as well. Today, there is not a single vulture in the state, according to Rahmani.
“Diclofenac is lethal to vultures. It does not matter from where they get it, from a dead Parsi or from a dead cow,” Rahmani said.
As corpses take longer, sometimes eight weeks, to decompose fully, the tower of silence continues to be a scene of partially decomposed bodies.
This has pushed some of the Parsi elders to blend the ritual of “sky burials” with modern technology.
“For 800 deaths a year, we need at least 250 vultures. But since there are no vultures around, we’ve installed solar concentrators. I think that’s the only way out now,” Dinshaw Rusi Mehta, a member the Bombay Parsi Punchayet, told Al Jazeera.
How decline of Indian vultures led to 500,000 human deaths
A new study links the vulture decline in India to deadly bacteria spread, causing about 500,000 deaths.
BBC: How decline of Indian vultures led to 500,000 human deaths 25 JUL 2024
>More than two decades ago, India’s vultures began dying because of a drug used to treat sick cows. > >By the mid-1990s, the 50 million-strong vulture population had plummeted to near zero because of diclofenac, a cheap non-steroidal painkiller for cattle that is fatal to vultures. Birds that fed on carcasses of livestock treated with the drug suffered from kidney failure and died.
>The unintentional decimation of these heavy, scavenging birds allowed deadly bacteria and infections to proliferate, leading to the deaths of about half a million people over five years, says the study published in the American Economic Association journal.
>“Vultures are considered nature’s sanitation service because of the important role they play in removing dead animals that contain bacteria and pathogens from our environment - without them, disease can spread,” says the study’s co-author, Eyal Frank, an assistant professor at University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy. > >“Understanding the role vultures play in human health underscores the importance of protecting wildlife, and not just the cute and cuddly. They all have a job to do in our ecosystems that impacts our lives.”
>The authors estimated that between 2000 and 2005, the loss of vultures caused around 100,000 additional human deaths annually, resulting in more than $69bn (£53bn) per year in mortality damages or the economic costs associated with premature deaths. > >These deaths were due to the spread of disease and bacteria that vultures would have otherwise removed from the environment.
>“The vulture collapse in India provides a particularly stark example of the type of hard-to-reverse and unpredictable costs to humans that can come from the loss of a species,” says Mr Sudarshan, an associate professor at the University of Warwick and co-author of the study.
It is amazing to see what a difference these birds most take for granted contribute to our success as a species.
Many find vultures to be creepy, but after learning about some of their amazing abilities and understanding why they've evolved to become what they are, they are superbly designed animals that excel at doing a very important job.
White-rumped vulture (Population loss since 2000: 98%)
Indian vulture (Population loss since 2000: 95%)
Red-headed vulture (Population loss since 2000: 91%)
I worked really hard to get inside the owl's head to deduce what it was thinking at that moment. ;)
Conveyed Motion
Photo by Mike Lentz
>I had spent so much time with this particular Snowy Owl that I was able to get a little bit creative and start doing/attempting pan blur photography once this Owl decided to take flight. > >I set my camera to manual mode at 1/60 second shutter speed and panned along with the bird as it flew by with the hope of getting a sharp eye and blurred wings. > >By following this technique, you can create dynamic images that convey a sense of motion and speed.
I don't think most people understand what all is involved in coming here, that not everyone can just get in a plane or bus or something and just magically end up in America or Germany or wherever.
Even as someone in favor of allowing everyone equal access and opportunity, I greatly misunderstood the dangers of coming here and how complex the process of coming into the country legally is.
Some people can be shitty people, but many just aren't informed of the facts. If you just take everyone as a bad person from the start, we just fight. We can calmly share facts and stories of what is really going on, and hopefully people will be receptive and their opinions can change. I feel most people are lied to about immigration or just uninformed all together.
I've mainly just been enjoying the stories from the It Could Happen Here podcast where they talk about their personal experiences working at the border. I've learned so much about the conditions there and learning about all the different people trying to come here despite what happens to them asking the way.
I'd much rather hear from those people helping than hearing more about Texas politicians making things worse. They also provide resources to learn how to get involved to help make things better. The news just tells the drama without providing any kind of answers or help, but there are stories of positivity to be found.
I'm glad you and that other person dealt with things in the long run.
It can be hard to find positive aspects in much of what is going on around the world, but all is not lost. There are those out there helping migrants, bringing aid to warzones, and others doing great things. For anything bad we can find, there's an opposite story to tell about those who are trying to make it better. Rather than telling the stories about the villains, let us tell stories about the heroes more.
I occasionally think about changing my name, or at least coming up with an alt account for when I express my opinions rather than doing my work on Superbowl, but this is me at this point. I try to keep it civil and avoid anything controversial, but I think I'm on with who I am and how I present myself here. Just as IRL, not everyone will like me or my opinions, but that is ok as well.
I primarily only feed the birds during snow season, and then I put out shelled and unshelled so everyone can grab their preference. They all seem to prefer the ones in shells (freshness? more natural taste?) but if it's the smaller birds or a squirrel that wants to really load itself up, they'll grab the loose pieces.
Most of the jays refuse to touch the ones not in shells though if whole ones are available and some will even hang back for a while to see if I'll toss some more good ones before they'll settle for the loosies. They'll get pretty competitive for them too.
Yes, it is a strange thing to make a fuss over.
The one that gets me is when people complain about paywalled articles. I agree it doesn't make sense to share one, but this is a tech savvy group here, and I kinda expect 95% of people to know how to deal with that by now. Even mainstream sites have shared how to get around that stuff long ago now.
The triviality is what makes me just do it myself. If I'm the one sharing something to a global audience, it makes more sense for me to do it once than to have everyone else go do it if they need to.
I was talking in another thread today, possibly one in response to this one, or at least one similar, and I basically said I want Lemmy to succeed, and my content is easy to source, but getting regular visitors and commenters is the hard part, so I'm willing to do a little pampering to positively reinforce my "guests," especially at this stage of the game. It's just some extra consideration, to show people I'm being thoughtful of them, and to make it feel like a place they can come to get facts without having to google them all the time.
My big issue with Lemmy at the moment is I think we're testing what level of civility we're willing to give to and to tolerate from others, and I don't see as many commenters being helpful to each other and I feel mods are scared to steer conversations back to more polite conduct due to the overbearing rep of Reddit mods. So I'm just trying to be the example of what I want to see. That's the real thing I'm looking to provide. The unit conversion is just a slice of that you could say.
I still have people downvote over nothing or make smartass comments occasionally, but I can't prevent it all. I'll do what I can though to make things pleasant and positive for who I can.
Owl News: Mexican Spotted Owls Benefit from Low Severity Fires (in the forest, not on themselves!)
From Wildlife.org
>Massive wildfires are harmful to the birds, but low-severity fires benefit their habitats > >Massive wildfires are harmful to Mexican spotted owls, but frequent, low-severity fires benefit them, researchers found. The finding suggests that returning the historical fire regime to the landscape can benefit the owls while reducing the risk of catastrophic fires. > >“We have very little hard data showing us how Mexican spotted owls respond to fire, which is a need-to-know piece of information for managers in the Southwest,” said Gavin Jones, a research ecologist with the Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station and the lead author of the study published in Fire Ecology. > >The Mexican spotted owl (Strix occidentalis lucida) is a threatened species that inhabits forests and canyonlands in the southwestern United States. These owls often live in forests that are at high risk of stand-replacing fire. Yet conservationists have been concerned that efforts to reduce wildlife risk—like thinning or prescribed fire—could alter the forest characteristics the owls depend on for their survival. > >Jones and his co-authors collected and analyzed eight years of monitoring data from Mexican spotted owl breeding pairs. They found owl pairs occupied sites at higher rates when these sites experienced more frequent fires in the previous three decades. > >In contrast, they found owl pairs persisted at lower rates at sites that experienced more extensive, high-severity fire. > >The research suggests that management activities intended to reduce megafire risk—like prescribed burning and mechanical thinning— will likely promote both Mexican spotted owl conservation and more resilient forest landscapes. > >“Mexican spotted owls appear to be well-adapted to historical frequent-fire regimes,” Jones said. “If we can get that type of fire back on the landscape, it should bode well for the species and its recovery.”
Weird Alice's Weird Molt
From The Raptor Trust
>Eastern Screech Owls often go through a 'catastrophic molt" which means that they shed all their feathers at once. Molting helps birds like Weird Alice shed feather parasites, grow in a new 'do, and get ready for migration, if that's what their species does. Weird Alice will look a little silly for a while, but when her feathers grow back she will be her normal beautiful self.
I'm going back here in 2 weeks, so I hope to get to see her looking extra weird!
Cool Shades
Photo by Ryan Humphrey
A young Long Eared Owl showing off its third eyelids. These are called nictitating membranes. They add extra protection to the eyes from physical damage and keep them most during flight.
Some Pel's Fishing Owls
Photos from Limpokwena Nature Reserve (Facebook)
>King of the African Waterways: The Pel's Fishing Owl > >Here at Limpokwena, we're lucky to have two resident breeding pairs of these fascinating and rare birds. Come and view their nesting sites in person now during their nesting season. > >Reigning supreme along African rivers and lakes, the Pel's fishing owl is no ordinary predator! Found throughout sub-Saharan Africa, this giant owl boasts a wingspan of a whopping 1.8 meters (almost 6 feet). Despite their size, they're stealthy hunters with incredible hearing, able to hear a fish splash from miles away! > >Listen closely at night, and you might just hear their booming calls.
Barn Owls
Well, they are owls in a barn, just not Barn Owls.
They are very Great Horned Owls.
Photos by Matthew Kirby (Facebook)
Do I Have To???
Photos shared by Owl Pages (Facebook)
This young Dusky Eagle Owl does not look be enthused for picture day.
Strange Crossover
Found this random little owl while looking for new content.
I do believe this is another Saw Whet.
It's from one of those weird feeds that's full of random questionable things, but you all like the owls in towels so I'll make an exception for unverified content.
I also noticed it had a very unusual set of tags. I'm not sure what type of audience they are going for here... Facebook feeds can be very strange.
Eurasian Scops Owl
Photo from Zoran Vidrih (Facebook)
>Our only owl that spends it's winters in Africa. The Eurasian scops owl (Otus scops) Slovenia, April 2024
Sweet Siblings
Photo by Mike Lentz (Facebook)
>Sibling cuddle bugs! These two sibling recently fledged Northern Saw Whet owls certainly gave us a show. In between naps, they would nip and groom each other as well. When they groom each others feathers, this is called "allopreeing". This is also a behavior that may come in handy during the breeding season. :) These Owls know how to keep their plumage in tip top shape!
A Photogenic Trio, Plus One
Photos by Dan Minicucci (Facebook)
>This trio of young barreds continue to be very photogenic and one venturing out to hunt on the forest floor.
Red Card
From A Place Called Hope (Facebook)
>Just give a hoot and take down the soccer nets when not in use... > >This Great Horned Owl is lucky he was found, rescued, and not broken from his ordeal. He is suffering from some soft tissue injuries but should make a full recovery. > >A special thanks to Dr Brenton from the Country Companions Veterinary Hospital in Bethany who rescued him. She will be pleased to help with his release when he is ready to go home. Hopefully the net will no longer be in his territory. > >We need to do better.. for all of our wildlife. Simple safety checks in our own backyards really makes a difference.
Pearl-Spotted Owlet
Photo by Hannu Sievänen (Facebook)
>Pearl-spotted owlet (Glaucidium perlatum) from Botswana. The pearl-spotted owlet occurs in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly widespread across savanna in southern Africa, across north and central Namibia, south to southern limit of arid bushveld and woodland in south Namibia. Their occurrence continues further north through Botswana and Zimbabwe up to Sudan and west to Senegal.