#human impact

[unaturalhistory]

Go on searching for the albums from my selection, you will not be disappointed !

Human Impact – Gone Dark

Killing Joke – Extremities, Dirt And Various Repressed Emotions

Uniform – Shame

The Body – I Have Fought Against It, But I Can’t Any Longer.

Head Of David – Dustbowl

Prurient – Bermuda Drain

Scraping Foetus Off The Wheel – Hole

Skin Chamber – Trial

Fange – Privation

Voïvod – Dimension Hatröss

[endangered-species-of-li]

Piping Plovers

(Photo by Tyler Moulton on Unsplash)

Piping plovers are small shorebirds that dwell on open beaches and rocky shores along the Atlantic coast of the US and Canada as well as on the shores of the Great Lakes. Their scientific name is Charadius melodus, Charadrius being the genus of shorebirds that plovers belong to, and melodus referring to the melodic high-pitched peeping noise they make. They are about the size of a sparrow, around 7 inches, with a rounded head, a stubby orange and black beak, and a stout body. They are hard to spot when they stand still because their sandy color allows them to blend in with their similarly sandy surroundings. They have a black stripes on their forehead and on their chest, the latter of which becomes thicker during mating season. Their cherubic appearance may have you thinking they couldn’t hurt a fly, but they very much could if that fly is a larval one. In addition to insect larvae, their diets also include marine worms, snails, and crustaceans. They have peculiar techniques when it comes to catching this prey, running in quick bursts and pecking at the sand for food, as well as vibrating one foot on the sand as a wave passes to bring prey to the surface.

Breeding season for piping plovers begins in late March. Males claim territory once they arrive on the breeding grounds, and make several nests called scrapes by scraping their feet to make indentations in the sand. A male piping plover also tries to impress a prospective mate with a courtship display, including dancing, flying in figure eights, and making his signature piping noise. If the female plover is impressed by this bizarre display, she will mate with him. She also evaluates the scrapes he made and chooses the best one, which the pair adorns with shells and debris to camouflage it. A few days after mating, the female begins to lay her eggs, one every other day, usually with four in total. The male and female take turns incubating the eggs until they hatch about 27 days later. Just hours after they hatch, the chicks are able to walk and feed on macroinvertebrates in the sand. Though they are relatively independent from the start, they stay with their parents for warmth and protection until they are able to fly, after about a month.

Piping plovers became endangered in the late 19th century because they were being overhunted for their feathers which were used for hats. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 helped recover the species along with many other birds which were facing similar problems. Their population was flourishing, but after WWII, they faced another decline because of increased development which was damaging their habitats. That is one of the things still causing their endangerment today. The species relies on open, sandy beaches as habitats and they nest on the ground, making them sensitive to human disturbances. Coastal development has intruded on their breeding and nesting spaces. Also, their nests can be unknowingly damaged by people, vehicles, and unmonitored pets. This problem has a fairly simple solution: be more careful around piping plover nesting grounds. Unfortunately, some of the threats they face run deeper than that and aren’t as easy to fix. 

Climate change affects everything on Earth, and piping plovers are no exception. It has been found that the rise in sea level caused by climate change will reduce piping plovers’ breeding areas on barrier islands in Long Island, or force them to move inland, which would only exacerbate the threat that human development poses to them. As well as higher sea levels, climate change also causes higher sand temperatures, which also negatively affect piping plovers, in particular, their nesting behaviors. Because of their habit of nesting on open grounds, they must utilize a variety of strategies for thermal regulation. Research shows that with an increase in the sand temperature, there is a decrease in piping plover nest attendance and an increase in frequency and duration of daily shading behavior. 

Clearly, piping plovers are facing many threats caused by humans, and need the help of humans to recover. If you’re not a shorebird enthusiast, for one thing, I’d recommend changing that, and for another, they still are an important species to protect for a few reasons. Like all organisms, they play a role in the food web, and without them, their ecosystem would be impacted. In their case specifically, they maintain the populations of insects and small crustaceans on beaches. Since they are sensitive to their environment, they also act as an indicator species, as their population health informs us of the overall condition of their habitats.

Everyone can and should do their part when it comes to the conservation of piping plovers. Much of what that involves is simply leaving them and their nesting spaces alone. Obey all signs and fences indicating nests, and keep your dogs leashed while on beaches. Another way to help, not only plovers, but all species, is to help limit climate change. A variety of steps can be taken to do this, including reducing energy usage, buying from sustainable brands, and electing politicians that promote climate action. A little goes a long way when it comes to conservation, and if everyone does their part, we can make this world better for piping plovers and everything else.

[jgthirlwell]

playlist 01.31.24

Oranssi Pazuzu Muunta Utuja (Nuclear Blast) Zuli Lamda (Subtext) Fennesz Mosaic (Touch) Luke Sanger Dew Point Harmonics (Balmat) Marewrew Ukouk - Round singing Voices of the Ainu 2012-2024 (Pingipung) Gordan Gordan (Glitterbeat) Caxtrinho Queda Livre (QTV) C.Lavender Rupture In The Eternal Dream (Ideal) Crooks On Tape Fingerprint (Misra) Lord Spikeheart The Adept (Hekalu) John Elmquist Hard Art Groop 900 Nurses (Bandcamp) Penderecki Untrenja (Naxos) Nudbug Ensemble Third (Catsynth) Human Impact Gone Dark (Ipecac) Ezra Sims The Microtonal; Music of Ezra Sims (CRI) NewBand Dance of The Seven Veils (Music & Arts) The Muffins Double Negative (Cuneiform) Olivia Block The Mountains Pass (Black Truffle) Marco Beltrami Underwater OST (Hollywood Records) Christopher Cerrone Beaufort Scales (Cold Blue)

[bodycatcher]

How to disappear completely

[saddayfordemocracy]

Edward Burtynsky, “African Studies”

From the diamond mines of South Africa to the richly textured landscape of Namibia’s Tsaus Mountains, the series spotlights the sub-Saharan region and its reserves of metals, salt, precious gemstones, and other ores. 

“I am surveying two very distinct aspects of the landscape,” he says in a statement, “that of the earth as something intact, undisturbed yet implicitly vulnerable… and that of the earth as opened up by the systematic extraction of resources.”

Taken over seven years in ten nations—these include Kenya, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Ghana, Senegal, South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Madagascar, and Tanzania—the aerial photos, which are compiled in a forthcoming book published by Steidl, present a dichotomy between a region irrevocably altered by humanity and one of immense possibility. 

Since 2013 when it launched its Belt and Road initiative, China has invested billions of dollars in expanding its global presence, with many African nations as targets. This growth, along with international competition for access and power on the continent, has widespread economic, environmental, and governmental impacts, which Burtynsky explores through the series.

[a-typical]

Yuriy while sandblasting the radioactive scrap metal. (Photographer, Pierpaolo Mittica.)

Inside the zone tons of metals lie abandoned, but over the years all this rusty gold has not gone unnoticed, and more or less illegally was recycled and today continues to be. Tons of metal leave the area each month. Since 2007, the Ukrainian government has legalized the recycling of radioactive metals with the blasting method. The workshop is close to the never finished number 5 and 6 reactors of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, a huge warehouse where twelve men clean and recycle radioactive metals. Their work is terribly dangerous, almost a death sentence in slow motion, as it forces the workers to continuously inhale radioactive particles like caesium, strontium and plutonium.

From the project "Chernobyl Stories" The Ukraine 2014-2019. (source)

[thoughtlessarse]

‘People think you come out … and live happily ever after. If only.’ The reality of life after wrongful conviction

‘Sometimes I sit in the bedroom and I’m crying my eyes out like a child’

Paddy Hill spent more than 16 years in prison for murders he did not commit. One of the so-called Birmingham Six who were wrongfully convicted for the Birmingham pub bombings in 1974, he was proof that exoneration and financial compensation do not fix a miscarriage of justice. When I met him in July 2023, more than 30 years after his release from prison, his ordeal continued to haunt him. He was in his late 70s, looking frail and far from the “12 and a half stone” man he was in Parkhurst Prison. He had very little appetite and was in poor health. The little sleep he was able snatch was marred by screaming nightmares. Neither of us knew it at the time, but this was to be his final interview. He died aged 80, on December 30 2024. I sat down to talk with Hill in his living room. Struggling to control his emotions, he told me: “Sometimes I sit in the bedroom … and I’m crying my eyes out like a child and I don’t know what the fuck happened … I’ve been so fucking screwed up.” The ITV docudrama Mr Bates vs the Post Office thrust wrongful convictions into mainstream consciousness in January 2024 – a quarter of a century after the Post Office began prosecuting sub-postmasters and mistresses for fraud, theft, and false accounting and 15 years after Rebecca Thomson’s Computer Weekly article exposing the Horizon IT system as the potential culprit. Now the public could finally see the human impact of miscarriages of justice on these upstanding – and, more importantly, innocent – members of their communities. Public outrage followed.

continue reading

[dropsofsciencenews]

Noisy Streets, Angry Beaks!

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What happens when you try to talk to someone, but noise keeps interrupting you? Usually, you raise your voice, and sometimes, you even get irritated. Something similar has been observed in the yellow warbler (Setophaga petechia aureola), a small bird native to the Galápagos Islands. These islands, famous for Darwin’s studies, are now experiencing a strong human impact. The population is growing by 6% each year, increasing the number of cars as well. A group of researchers wanted to understand whether traffic noise could affect the territorial singing of warblers, which are among the most frequently road-killed animals.

Why focus on this type of song? For many birds, vocal signaling helps them avoid physical fights, as males can assess their rivals just by their song, without engaging in direct confrontation, thus reducing the risk of injury or death. However, if noise masks acoustic signals, it becomes harder to evaluate opponents, increasing the likelihood of aggression. To investigate this, scientists conducted experiments on two islands: Santa Cruz, home to one of the busiest roads in the archipelago, and Floreana, where both cars and people are rare.

The researchers recorded warbler songs and traffic noise, then played them back in territories near roads and in those more than 100 meters away. The results showed that warblers responded to playbacks with territorial defense behaviors, regardless of the type of sound. However, birds with territories near the road became more aggressive when the song was mixed with traffic noise, whereas those farther away became less aggressive. This may be due to noise interference with communication, making it harder to assess an intruder and leading to a greater reliance on physical defense.

The number of songs, however, did not change. Minimum frequency slightly increased with noise, while peak frequency—the loudest frequency—only increased in birds far from the road. Song duration increased in Santa Cruz but decreased in Floreana. Changes in frequency and duration suggest an attempt to compensate for noise, but there may be a limit beyond which communication is no longer effective. These results are crucial because, for a long time, the Galápagos Islands have been considered a natural laboratory, but growing human impact is already altering wildlife behavior.

See You Soon, and Good Science!

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