Bird flu? What birds?
There's a great deal of hype in the news surrounding the avian flu. Until the virus mutates into a form that can spread from human to human, there is absolutely nothing to worry about as a foreigner in China. How can I make such a bold statement? Because I have seen exactly 3 wild birds in 2 years living in China. Caged birds are, well, in cages where you aren't going to come into contact with them if you're smart. There simply are no wild birds in most of this country, something that hadn't really occurred to me till I made it to Japan where the sound of chirping birds fills the forests.
So the real question is, where are all the birds? Some say that the Chinese ate them all, which seems like a good explanation until you realize how hard it is to catch a wild bird, much less ALL of them. More plausible is that habitat destruction and especially the overuse of pesticides has killed them.
Any other insights? You won't see much about this in the news over here, but if you find an article related to the dearth of birds, please post a link in the comments section.
Labels: china
posted by Ryan Petersen @ 3:23 PM
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Ok, so I noticed the same lack of birds when I was visiting India during ChunJie. Where have all the birds in China gone?
I don't know how true it is, but as I went investigating, several of my friends suggested a massive Mao era tree shaking campaign. People were assigned to keep watch over various trees in a danwei, and if a bird landed, they would shake the tree until it left. Eventually the birds all left because they were so tired/annoyed by all the shaking.
Urban legend? Possibly. But I frankly wouldn't put it past the Chinese, especially during the Mao era!
Haha, that is a great story. But I don't think there's any truth to it. More plausible is a combination of habitat destruction and the overuse of pesticides (DDT and others).
During the Great Leap Forward, in an attempt to increase China's production of iron, citizens were urged as a matter of national security to start their own iron smelters, right in their own backyards. To do this, they were required to use massive amounts of fuel, which of course resulted in intense deforestation throughout the country. And the real shame of it is, the iron was of such low quality that it had no practical use whatsoever.
DDT, a chemical used to target mosquitos and other pests, weakens the eggs laid by birds that have been exposed to it. Blamed for the endangerment and extinction of many bird species, it was widely used throughout the world until the 1970s, and remains popular in many developing countries (probably including China, though I haven't actually seen the data for this). In India local governments still spray their resevoirs of drinking water with DDT, and then turn around and attack Coca Cola and Pepsi when the stuff turns up in a few parts per billion of their products. But that's another issue...
Awhile ago i read "Eye of the Albatross" by Carl Safina. The book suggests that the run off from pesticides from China and India into the Pacific, is affecting these birds ability to reproduce on islands which are in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Not that the US doesn't have a role in this sad scenario. Adult birds out hunting for things to feed their chicks, often ingest plastic flotsam, feeding them this non nutritious junk which causes the chicks to starve.
Very interesting blog.
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