This is a free ride at theexpense of the USDA. Surprise! Pests need to be occasionally eradicated ifwe hope to sustain any agriculture let alone the modern version. Lest we forget, the starling is an unwantedimport that has taken a much too dominant position in our skies.
It has since filled our skies andis a little too flexible in their feeding habits having become omnivores aroundhuman habitation. They are simply the avianversion of the rat and may well have contributed to the downward pressure onmany native birds.
The claim of habitat loss is tobe less trusted today with the ongoing restoration of woodland throughout Eastern North America . The native species should be largely increasing and may well be doing sounless they are not nearly so forest friendly as we thought.
Certainly swallows loved ourbarns of times past when appropriate cliff dwellings simply did not exist. I doubt is present buildings are anywherenear as accommodating.
There is actual merit inproviding convenient shelves for barn swallows on any building. It only needs to be a plank nailed to a wall aroundten to fifteen feet of the ground and over a earthen surface able to handle guanosuch as a flower bed. A second plankneeds to provide an overhand to keep the nests dry.
You will then have your ownprivate army of insect eaters filling the sky at dusk in particular and mostother times. They are beautiful birds. Somehow a city full of swallows will not haveas big a problem suppressing insects.
Beyond all that, I am not surethat starling suppression works very well and may simply be a waste of time.
USDA found to be poisoning bird populations, causing mass die-offsinvolving millions of birds
Friday, January 21, 2011
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com
(NaturalNews) Not all the mysterious bird die-offs that have beenwitnessed around the globe recently are due to unexplained causes. A recentmass die-off event witnessed in Yankton, South Dakota
After hundreds of starlings were found dead in the
The USDA then confirmed thestory and explained it was all "part of a large killing" in
USDA mass-murders birds on a regular basis
So why was the USDA poisoningbirds in the first place? A Nebraska
The USDA complied, apparently agreeing this was a brilliant idea. So they putout a poison calledDRC-1339and allowed thousands of birds to feed on thatpoison.
Carol Bannerman from USDA Wildlife Services ridiculously claimed the bird killwas also to protect "human health."
"We're doing it to address, in this case, agricultural damage as well asthe potential for human health and safety issues," she said. That's just alie, of course. In what universe do starlings pose a threat to human health andsafety?
The USDA even has a name for this mass poisoning program:Bye Bye Blackbird.Through the use of poisons such as DRC-1339, the USDA has killedmore than fourmillion birdsover the last several years, reports Truthout (http://www.truth-out.org/bye-bye-bl...).
They even proudly publish an online spreadsheet showing just how many they'vemurdered with poison: http://www.aphis.usda.gov/wildlife_...
Remember, these are mass bird killings that are funded with your tax dollars.It all makes you wonder whether the governmentis, in fact,responsible for many of the other mysterious animal deaths that have beenreported across the country (and around the globe).
It also makes you wonder: If the federal government thinks nothing of murdering4 million living, breathing birds, then what else might they be capable ofdoing out of atotal lack of respect for wildlife?
And if the USDA poisons birds because certain groups become too populous, whatdo you suppose is planned for when human population grows too large?
Starlings are smallto medium-sized passerine birds in the family Sturnidae.The name "Sturnidae" comes from the Latin word forstarling, sturnus. Starlings occur naturally in the Old World,from Europe, Asia and Africa, to northern Australia andthe islands of the tropical Pacific. Several European and Asian species have beenintroduced to these areas as well as NorthAmerica, Hawaii and New Zealand,where they generally compete for habitat with native birds and are consideredto be invasive species. The starling species familiar tomost people in Europe and North America is the EuropeanStarling, and throughout much of Asia and thePacific the Common Myna is indeed common.
Starlings have strong feet, their flight is strong and direct, and theyare very gregarious. Their preferred habitat is fairly open country, and theyeat insects and fruit. Severalspecies live around human habitation, and are effectively omnivores. Manyspecies search for food by opening the bill after probing it into densevegetation; this behavior is called "open-bill probing" or isreferred to by the German word zirkeln.
Plumage is typically dark with a metallic sheen. Most species nest inholes, laying blue or white eggs.
Many Asian species, particularly the larger ones, are called mynas, and many Africanspecies are known as glossy starlings because of their iridescent plumage.
Starlings have diverse and complex vocalizations, and have been knownto embed soundsfrom their surroundings into their own calls, including car alarms,and human speech patterns. The birds can recognize particular individuals bytheir calls, and are currently the subject of research into the evolution of humanlanguage.[
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