Survival of the Fittest During the Anthropocene

Humans are a part of the natural world, and human activities have an enormous impact on worldwide ecosystems. The impact is so great, some scientists think the current geological era we live in now should be known as the Anthropocene. The animals and plants that are best able to adapt to Anthropocene living conditions have the best chance of surviving into the future. I call it survival of the fittest during the Anthropocene. When I used this phrase on twitter in defense of cats, whiny woke wimps showered their fury at me. One anonymous jerk called me a ninny, short for pickaninny, a derogatory term for a black child. Darren Naish, a world-renowned vertebrate zoologist, clicked on the like button for this racist tweet, then blocked me because I don’t agree that cats are detrimental to the environment. I don’t think Naish is a racist–he probably didn’t know ninny was a racist term. He may be an expert on vertebrate zoology, but his knowledge of other topics is apparently limited.

Darren Naish liked a post from someone who referred to me using a racist term, then he blocked me because I don’t agree that feral cats are detrimental to the ecosystem.

A man on twitter called me a ninny, short for pickaninny, a derogatory racist term. Darren Naish clicked on the like button.

I like animals capable of thriving during the Anthropocene. Cats are 1 of the best examples of an organism well adapted to living alongside humans. They can survive with or without people, existing in conditions ranging from being pampered to total neglect. Cats are a commensal species with humans and will occur wherever humans live, whether woke ecologists like it or not. Some scientists unfairly demonize cats. Most of the studies purporting to show how cats are detrimental to ecosystems are so bad I can’t understand how they get published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Perhaps, the most famous paper (widely regurgitated without question in the media) claimed cats killed an estimated 94 million birds per year in the U.S. The author of that paper simply made-up numbers using wild guessing. Cats do kill birds on occasion, but they are taking the place of natural predators that would live in the area, if it had remained wilderness. Some species of songbirds have artificially inflated populations in suburban locations because humans create favorable nesting structures, maintain bird feeders, and suppress natural predator populations. A cat killing a songbird in the suburbs is actually restoring a balance. Moreover, cats control rodents and rabbits, species that spread disease and actually compete with humans for food.

My outdoor cats. They control rodent populations and provide companionship.

Ross Barnett is another scientist always whining about cats on twitter. The sadistic hypocrite favors bringing the lynx back to Great Britain where they have been extirpated, but he participated in a cat eradication program in Australia. Cat eradication programs in that part of the world have been disastrous. Rat and rabbit populations exploded wherever cats were eliminated. Rats ate all the birds the eradication programs were supposed to protect, and rabbits denuded the landscape. How can Barnett lament the loss of the lynx, but favor the destruction of an animal so similar? His reasoning makes no sense.

I don’t like the term, invasive species. Every successful organism has been invasive at some point in its evolutionary history. They originated at 1 location and invaded surrounding territory. I prefer to call them newly colonizing species, and I think they increase diversity. House sparrows are 1 of my favorite newly colonizing species, and they are well adapted to surviving the Anthropocene. They are commonly found in grocery store parking lots, and some even live inside the stores. Few other birds (with the exceptions of pigeons and ring-billed gulls) can be found thriving in parking lots.

House sparrows are one of my favorite newly colonizing species. They are common in grocery store parking lots, and some times even live inside the stores.

Bradford pears are another 1 of my favorite newly colonizing species. Many ecologists revile this species because of the way they take over abandoned fields at the expense of native species. I think they contribute greatly to the beauty of the landscape. They provide white flowers in spring, attractive foliage in fall, and food and nesting for birds.

Flowering Bradford pear tree in an old field. I love this species. Woke horticulturalists suggest replacing them with native serviceberry. What a stupid suggestion. Serviceberry won’t successfully grow in most locations, like Bradford pear trees can.

Instead of lamenting all of the organisms incapable of surviving during the Anthropocene, people should appreciate the tough species that can survive in a world dominated by humans.

In Defense of House Sparrows

Jessica Neal and Virginie Rolland, scientists from Arkansas State, published a paper in Southeastern Naturalist about their research of bluebird nesting boxes, and they mentioned “euthanizing” non-native house sparrow nestlings that they found occupying the nest boxes intended for bluebirds.  This irritates me for several reasons.  I hate the use of the word, euthanize, because it was used to sanitize what they actually did.  They killed helpless baby birds.  Many people kill house sparrows because this species outcompetes native birds such as bluebirds, swallows, woodpeckers, and unestablished purple martins.  It is too bad these species may be in decline, but when she killed the house sparrows that were occupying that site there were then fewer  birds occupying that area.  Bluebirds probably weren’t going to return to that site during that nesting season, and there is no guarantee they ever will.  Without the house sparrows there was less avifauna for bird watchers to enjoy.  I also don’t like the way they played God by deciding which species they wanted to live there.  Some may say humans already decided to play God by introducing house sparrows to North America in 1852 when ironically they were brought to New York to control native linden moths.  I reject this argument.  Humans shouldn’t pick an animal to introduce, then decide they don’t want it any more and try to eradicate it.  Not only are humans playing God, they are playing a fickle God in this case.  Not even the worst Old Testament version of God was this monstrous.

House sparrows are a commensal species with humans.

I love house sparrows because they thrive where few other birds can.  Every grocery store shopping center hosts a colony of house sparrows, and they often live in the patio section of big chain lawn and garden centers.  This habitat is completely unsuitable for native songbirds.  The only other bird species I see in suburban parking lots are city pigeons (also non-native) and ring-billed gulls during winter.  But house sparrows are abundant in these otherwise barren urban environments where they feast on discarded junk foods and fill the atmosphere with their delightful singing.

The house sparrow (Passer domesticus) originated in the Middle East having evolved from P. predomesticus following the development of agriculture.  Fossil remains of P. predomesticus have been unearthed from Qumm-Quatufa Cave in Israel that date to the mid-Pleistocene.  House sparrows may have already been a commensal species with archaic humans, hanging around their garbage middens.  Late Pleistocene remains have also been discovered from Kebara Cave in Israel.  Genetic evidence suggests P. predomestica diverged from the Spanish sparrow (P. hispaniolensis) about 100,000 years ago.  Another genetic study suggests P. domesticus evolved larger skulls and an improved ability to digest starch 11,000 years ago–the dawn of the agricultural era.  The larger skulls helped them crack human-grown grains, and the improved ability to digest starch let them survive on an heavy diet of wheat, rye, and oats.  They became less dependent upon insects than their wildest remaining subspecies P. domesticus bactranius. Unfortunately for other songbirds, their larger skulls gave them greater biting and piercing force, and this allows house sparrows to outcompete them.

House sparrows followed humans throughout Europe and Asia where they continued to feast on grain spillage and nest on housing structures.  This close association with humans let house sparrows conquer the world wherever humans became established.  House sparrows were formerly even more abundant when the horse and buggy were the most common mode of transportation.  In addition to excess grain spillage house sparrows ate the undigested grains in horse manure.  But the introduction of the automobile dealt a little setback to house sparrow populations, reducing the amount of grain and manure in the environment.  Nevertheless, a trip to the local grocery store is all it takes to see them.

References:

Schans, Franke

“How the Sparrow Made Its Home with Humans”

Science August 24, 2018

Neal, Jessica; and Virginie Rolland

“A Potential Case of Brood Parasitism by Eastern Bluebirds on House Sparrows”

Southeastern Naturalist (14) 2 2015