Starling Irradication

This is a free ride at the expense of the USDA.  Surprise!  Pests need to be occasionally eradicated if we hope to sustain any agriculture let alone the modern version.  Lest we forget, the starling is an unwanted import that has taken a much too dominant position in our skies.

It has since filled our skies and is a little too flexible in their feeding habits having become omnivores around human habitation.  They are simply the avian version of the rat and may well have contributed to the downward pressure on many native birds.

The claim of habitat loss is to be 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 so unless they are not nearly so forest friendly as we thought.

Certainly swallows loved our barns of times past when appropriate cliff dwellings simply did not exist.  I doubt is present buildings are anywhere near as accommodating.

There is actual merit in providing convenient shelves for barn swallows on any building.  It only needs to be a plank nailed to a wall around ten to fifteen feet of the ground and over a earthen surface able to handle guano such as a flower bed.  A second plank needs to provide an overhand to keep the nests dry.

You will then have your own private army of insect eaters filling the sky at dusk in particular and most other times.  They are beautiful birds.  Somehow a city full of swallows will not have as big a problem suppressing insects.

Beyond all that, I am not sure that starling suppression works very well and may simply be a waste of time.

USDA found to be poisoning bird populations, causing mass die-offs involving 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 been witnessed around the globe recently are due to unexplained causes. A recent mass die-off event witnessed in Yankton, South Dakota was traced back to the USDA which admitted to carrying out amass poisoning of the birds.

After hundreds of starlings were found dead in the Yankton Riverside Park, concerned citizens began to investigate. Before long, a USDA official called the local police and admitted they had poisoned thebirds. "They say that they had poisoned the birds about ten miles south of Yankton and they were surprised they came to Yankton like they did and died in our park," says Yankton Animal Control Officer Lisa Brasel, as reported by KTIV (http://www.ktiv.com/Global/story.as...).

The USDA then confirmed the story and explained it was all "part of a large killing" in Nebraska. Some of the birds that ate the poison apparently flew all the way to Yankton before succumbing to the poison.

Watch the video yourself, as reported from KTIV: http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=19157...

USDA mass-murders birds on a regular basis

So why was the USDA poisoning birds in the first place? A Nebraska farmer was apparently complaining that the starlings were defecating in his feed meal. The answer to this conundrum apparently isn't to cover your feed meal but rather call the USDA and ask them to poison thousands of birds.

The USDA complied, apparently agreeing this was a brilliant idea. So they put out a poison calledDRC-1339and allowed thousands of birds to feed on that poison.

Carol Bannerman from USDA Wildlife Services ridiculously claimed the bird kill was also to protect "human health."

"We're doing it to address, in this case, agricultural damage as well as the potential for human health and safety issues," she said. That's just a lie, of course. In what universe do starlings pose a threat to human health and safety?

The USDA Wildlife Services website, by the way, is http://www.aphis.usda.gov

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 four million 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've murdered 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 been reported across the country (and around the globe).

It also makes you wonder: If the federal government thinks nothing of murdering 4 million living, breathing birds, then what else might they be capable of doing out of atotal lack of respect for wildlife?

And if the USDA poisons birds because certain groups become too populous, what do you suppose is planned for when human population grows too large?

Starlings are small to medium-sized passerine birds in the family Sturnidae. The name "Sturnidae" comes from the Latin word for starling, sturnus. Starlings occur naturally in the Old World, from Europe, Asia and Africa, to northern Australia and the islands of the tropical Pacific. Several European and Asian species have been introduced to these areas as well as North America, Hawaii and New Zealand, where they generally compete for habitat with native birds and are considered to be invasive species. The starling species familiar to most people in Europe and North America is the European Starling, and throughout much of Asia and the Pacific the Common Myna is indeed common.

Starlings have strong feet, their flight is strong and direct, and they are very gregarious. Their preferred habitat is fairly open country, and they eat insects and fruit. Several species live around human habitation, and are effectively omnivores. Many species search for food by opening the bill after probing it into dense vegetation; this behavior is called "open-bill probing" or is referred to by the German word zirkeln. 

Plumage is typically dark with a metallic sheen. Most species nest in holes, laying blue or white eggs.

Many Asian species, particularly the larger ones, are called mynas, and many African species are known as glossy starlings because of their iridescent plumage.

Starlings have diverse and complex vocalizations, and have been known to embed sounds from their surroundings into their own calls, including car alarms, and human speech patterns. The birds can recognize particular individuals by their calls, and are currently the subject of research into the evolution of human language.[