In article ,
(IntarsiaCo) wrote:

Sometime in October 2002 Paghat claimed:
"If the West Nile encephalitis continues to eradicate crows, which are
particularly vulnerable to the virus & have already vanished entirely from
some infected east coast cities, a great many people who once complained
of these wonderful intelligent birds will be awfully sorry, remembering
their bold antics fondly."



The 103rd Christmas Bird Count clearly refutes your claim, in
particular, there
are plenty of American Crows in DC. One must not believe EVERYTHING one reads,
a bit of COMMON SENSE is required to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Cheers,
Mark

First of all, IF crows made a miraculous comeback & WNV was no longer a
problem, that'd be good news unreleated to my degree of common sense, so
amusing you'd take a quote out of context & then without credible basis
turn it into a flame rather than share something you spotted in the news.
Clearly you were chary of citing specifics since it would not otherwise
fit your desire to flame rather than share useful or creditable
information.

Would-be debunkers, meaning chaff such as yourself, should strive to read
a wee-bit more carefully to not make a fool of yourself, since the
documention of crows vanishing en masse was never for the entire city of
Washington DC but for Brookland DC area only; & this was taken as a highly
worrisome indicator of things to come, not as proof that crow extinction
is broadly inevitable, merely possible. Unlike you, I do apply common
sense, & will be happy if crows are able to weather this extreme crisis,
but for the moment the North American bird population, & crows in
particular, are at the beginning, not the end, & not even the middle of a
clear crisis.

The die-off has been milder elsewhere, including elsewhere in DC, but
Brookland is feared to be at the vanguard for something only just now
building steam. Because crow populations can remain in their own isolated
communities, the impact has to be assessed neighborhood by neighborhood, &
the Brookland population had been longest infected. Now if the Brookland
crows DO make a come-back, that would be great news -- I've not seen any
updated report so don't know if new populations have moved in to fill the
niches vacated by the Brookland die-off. Whether or not that happens would
not be related to my degree of common sense, would not say a lot about the
WNV threat to crows, but it would be good news if such news existed.

Audubon crow counts aren't scientific & there is nothing to stop YOU from
calling in & reporting your latest flying pink elephant sighting; plus, in
the past, many annual counts were from people who automatically including
everything EXCEPT pigeons & crows, but now crows are more on everyone's
mind. But even the unreliable Audobon "back yard count" have indicated
(less extremely than some scientific field research) that there is a mild
decline in crow population along the eastern seaboard & midwest, but not
yet for the west coast which was last to be infected or is not yet widely
infected at all; the west coast could be five years behind the curve, &
west coast occurrences are just a foreshadowing. When more people
participate in the annual count, the more birds get counted -- it's to too
great an extent just a back yard count after all, & this year Audobon got
more news-coverage in the week leading up to the counting period than
usual, so an unusually high number of people phoned in, & as always, if
you're such an amateur you can't even tell a raven from a crow from a
starling, there is no way for your count to be discounted. But the point
for statistics is this: Even if the Audobon count were assumed to have a
high degree of accuracy, it remains, if a given neighborhood has 50 people
who phone in an average of 20 birds apiece in one year, & in the next year
500 people phone in an average of ten birds appiece, the total may look
vastly higher but the ratio would be half, & indicative of a horrific
decline.

Even so, whad did the AUDUBON society ITSELF conclude? The obvious: John
Bianchi speaking Dec 2002 for the society nationally: "This year, West
Nile Virus seems to have had a larger impact on U.S. bird populations than
in years past." Bianchi also pointed out that it was cruciel for the
regional organizers to undertake the count EXACTLY as it had been taken in
past years, or no comparisons to previous year counts would reveal
anything whatsoever about WVN impacts. Sadly it was not undertaken as in
past years, but the largest number of people who had never counted before
participated & skewed all results. Also the education packets for people
who sign on for the count far enough in advance did not meet demand, so
there wasn't even the usual inadequate degree of preparation. The Society
is certainly not attempting on any level to use the winter bird count as
indicating WNV is anything short of an extravagant threat to crows, jays,
ravens, hawks, owls, & eagles -- these are the most suscpetible
populations, & crows are still #1 -- over three times as many crows have
fallen prey to WNV than all other birds combined (& that's the science
conducted by Bunning, not regional club surmises).

So COMMON SENSE suggests you personally should not place so much weight on
the VERY LITTLE YOU KNOW about it, with even that teency bit either
misprepresented or misremembered by yourself. If you can give a CITATION
that indicates crows are making the fabulous comeback in Brookland, great,
I'll read that report happily & hope for similarly great news nationwide.
It wouldn't change anything I reported previously, but it would be new
information worth attending. Alas, you have no information worth
attending, do ya.

Hhere is just one opinion vastly better drawn that yours, from Raymond
Adams, MAS research committee chair for the study of avian mortality due
to West Nile Virus. It's significance Adams' opinion is based on a deep &
growing body of knowledge & ongoing research nationwide, & typical of
ANYone well grounded in this recent problem, Adams' degree of concern is
fairly great because of what he likens "heavy mortality" among these
birds, to whit to woo:

"My concern for American Crows and other North American bird species
arises from the high incidence of mortality of individual birds infected
by the virus in this country. The American Crow, Blue Jay, some owls and
hawks are especially prone to this disease. West Nile Virus outbreaks with
heavy mortality of birds are largely unknown within the original
geographic range of the virus. In North America, large outbreaks in birds
associated with heavy mortality (epizootics) occurred in 1999 and 2002. In
recent weeks, nature centers, animal control offices and offices of the
Michigan Department of Natural Resources have been inundated with
telephone calls regarding dead and dying birds. In my 33 years at the
Kalamazoo Nature Center, our facility has never received this many reports
of dead and dying birds during the summer. By 23 August 2002 the hotline
had logged 6576 calls regarding dead or dying birds. Of these, 3132 were
from just 3 counties. Help is needed on several fronts. Anyone seeing dead
or dying crows should report the observation to the Michigan hot line for
the West Nile Virus by accessing
http://www.nwhc.usgs.gov/research/we...west_nile.html "

To date no DEFINITIVE answer about the future fate of crows & raptors is
possible & my sounding an alarm is only what all health, wildlife, & bird
organizatiosn are doing with sound indicators for what is very possibly
going to occur over the next five years: more mass die-offs of crows
foremost among birds. The Washington Post article that suggested crows are
going to go the way of the Passenger Pigeon, with the Brookland die-off
underscoring the worst-case scenario, is not yet a given. It is a worry.
That you're not worried about it is largely because you're not bright
enough to follow the issue, or really don't care.

On the final fate of the crows & the science is still beginning to gather
data, & it remains that in too many regions there is no sound science
being conducted at all, so that to too great an extant people are still
reliant on amateur bird counts, or thoroughly uncontrolled world wide web
reports such as anyone can leave at www.birdsource.org/gbbc. This is
regarded by the Audobon Society itself as the "Surveillance Stage" & not
of scientific value. The Surveillance nevertheless has a high priority for
the very reason that it is regarded as an emerging crisis of the highest
order, & SOME preliminary indicators are needed to heighten scientific
interest -- in such a light, the GBBC project is regarded
"better'n'nothing" rather than really something.

Many wildlife & health organizations are collecting dead birds from the
public to establish causes of death, & more data is published each month
(though not on the web for easy access). Up to now it remains that for
bird populations as a whole, the single largest cause of death (by far!)
is pesticides, so non-organic gardeners & agriculturalists remain birds'
worst enemies. But for crows per se, & for a growing percentage of
raptors, & especially in the longest-infected areas including specific
areas of NYC & Washington DC, the chief cause of death is already WNV.
And that vaunted "common sense" suggests it will get worse; only profound
ignorance concludes it isn't even a problem.

-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/