Urgently seeking information about the relationship between birds and human life.

The relationship between birds and humans

This section tries to explain the importance of animals in human life, how to judge the pros and cons, and the complexity involved in the protection and rational utilization of wildlife resources through discussion.

Domestic animals have brought great benefits to human life, and their importance in human life is self-evident. So far, countries all over the world have been seeking and cultivating new domesticated varieties to meet the growing social needs. As far as birds are concerned, in addition to domestic chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, guinea fowl and quails domesticated by wild ancestors for a long time, there are ostriches, peacocks, ring-necked pheasants and "American partridges" (actually, Ale, which was introduced to China in recent years and widely raised for meat, eggs, skins and feathers) Exploring how to domesticate wild animals with great economic value and breeding prospects has broad prospects and is also a way to protect and utilize wild animal resources. A large number of zoologists are needed to do this research. As for the further cultivation and breeding of poultry varieties, it is the main task of geneticists and agronomists. This paper only introduces the relationship between wild birds and humans.

The vast majority of birds (and wild animals) are beneficial to human beings, and they are important factors to maintain the stability of human living environment and ecosystem. In recent years, protecting biodiversity has become one of the hot spots in the world. 1992 At the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, the Convention on Biological Diversity was adopted. China is one of the earliest contracting parties, and has undertaken the obligation to protect China's biodiversity, including wildlife. This is essentially a fundamental change in people's understanding of the "benefits" and "harms" of wild animals. From the perspective of historical development, human understanding of things is constantly innovating and deepening with the development of science. In the early days, when people considered the advantages and disadvantages of wild animals, their vision was narrow, and they often only saw the direct benefits with human beings, such as whether food and utilization value were high or not, whether to eat pests or crops, whether to spread diseases and so on. With the deepening of research, it is found that not only the answers to the above questions involve very complicated factors and need a lot of in-depth scientific research, but also when a species is considered as a member of the ecosystem, we will know that we know little about the problems we face, some of which are superficial, and there is still a lot of work to be done. Based on the basic principles of ecosystem stability and biodiversity protection, wild animals, especially the vast majority of wild animals that are not fully understood at present, should be properly protected, and on this basis, scientific and reasonable sustainable utilization should be carried out. Animals that cause injuries in local areas and time should be properly controlled under scientific guidance. We should be extremely cautious when "introducing" or "destroying" a species.

The purpose of protection is to maximize the rational use of animal resources on the basis of keeping the ecosystem in a relatively stable and healthy benign material cycle. Take the economically valuable population that grows through reproduction every year as an example. Otherwise, it is a waste to leave it to its own devices. Birds are a group of animals with great benefits and little harm. In addition to ecological and economic benefits, they have also made important contributions to the development of science and social civilization. The theory of biological evolution, as well as many biological and ecological theories, was first revealed from ornithology research and then verified in other groups. The ornament function of birds in urban gardens and their contribution to literary and artistic creation are well known. Therefore, "bird love" and "bird watching" have long been a widespread mass movement in developed countries.

The direct interests between birds and humans mainly include:

First of all, the predation of birds

(1) Predatory evaluation: Most birds can prey on agricultural and forestry pests. Even birds that feed mainly on plant food feed their chicks with insects (especially Lepidoptera larvae) rich in nutrition and water during the breeding period, which plays a considerable role in inhibiting the growth of pest population. Raptors are natural enemies of rodents, and many small raptors also feed on insects, so they play an important role in controlling rodents and pests, removing animal carcasses and reducing the spread of animal epidemics. There are many kinds and numbers of birds, which are distributed in various ecological environments. In particular, the habit of flying life makes them have the mobile predation ability to follow the swarms of locusts and mice, which is unmatched by other predatory animal groups. Therefore, in general, especially considering the role of birds in the whole ecosystem, insect-eating birds and raptors should be fully protected, which is the consensus of the whole world.

But it is difficult to judge the predation function of each bird in a specific area and time, that is, how much benefit it has. A lot of scientific research must be carried out. It is impossible to simply estimate how many pests or mice a bird can kill in a year by eating a day, or even calculate how much food to protect. As far as insect-eating birds are concerned, it does involve: ① how many insects eaten by insect-eating birds are pests and how many are predatory insects (beneficial insects), and whether the relationship between them is affected after predation; ② Population dynamics of insect-eating birds and their main prey (pests) in a specific area, especially the prey population density before and after birds preyed. In fact, the only criterion to judge the predation effect (benefit) of birds is "whether the population density of their main prey is suppressed to a harmless level through the predation of birds". As far as the reproductive potential of insects is concerned, if natural enemies can't reduce the population density to more than 90%, then the remaining individuals will quickly return to the original level through reproduction.

Just because of the difficulty of the above problems, so far there are not many research results that reach this depth. However, according to the existing materials, birds have obvious predation effect when the density of pests is low, which can block or prevent the occurrence of pests or prolong the occurrence interval. For example, the study on the population dynamics of leaf roller moth in the United States found that about 20% ~ 65% of larvae were preyed by birds in normal years, while only 3.5% ~ 7.0% were preyed when pests occurred. The predation amount of Dendrolimus punctatus in Pinus massoniana plantation in Zhejiang Province of China is generally 4.7 1% ~ 22. 19%, while the occurrence year of Dendrolimus punctatus is only 0.22%, which is 20 times lower. This is mainly because the population growth of insect-eating birds is much lower than that of pests. Although it is known that some birds can increase their population by increasing their fecundity in the year when their prey is abundant, this is insignificant compared with the growth of their prey. According to the calculation, in a forest area in the United States, the population of leaf roller moth increased by 8 000 times, while the chestnut warbler, which was the most responsive to it, only increased by 12 times. Of course, there is more than one bird that preys on some pests in nature. Because of the wide variety and distribution of insect-eating birds, it is very important to inhibit pests, especially to maintain the stability of the ecosystem in normal years. At the same time, we should also realize that it is unrealistic to try to control pests solely by birds in forestry management. This is especially because most of the artificial forests are young forests with single forest type, and the birds they attract and inhabit are very rare. Therefore, comprehensive control strategies should be advocated in forest pest control, that is, developing low-cost, high-efficiency and non-toxic chemical pesticides and using a variety of natural enemies (virus pathogens, fungi, predatory and parasitic insects, insect-eating birds, etc.). ) and reasonable preparation of forest species. Any single control method has its limitations.

(II) Protection and Utilization of Insect-eating Birds The fundamental principle of protecting insect-eating birds is to protect and improve their habitats, control the use of chemical pesticides with residual toxicity, and prohibit indiscriminate hunting and catching. This is a long-term task, which requires extensive publicity and education to raise the awareness of the whole society. Since 1988, China promulgated the Wildlife Protection Law of People's Republic of China (PRC), and since 199 1, it has launched the "Bird-loving Week" every year, which has received quite remarkable results.

Hanging artificial nest boxes in the garden area to attract insect-eating birds and provide more nest sites for those species nesting in caves has long been widely used at home and abroad, especially in young forests lacking tree holes. However, the measures to attract insect-eating birds by hanging artificial nests should be moderate, which does not mean that the more nests are hung, the more birds will be attracted. First of all, only a few species of insect-eating birds nest in caves and like to choose artificial nesting boxes; Secondly, due to the limitation of food resources or environmental carrying capacity, it is impossible to allow the number of insect-eating birds to increase indefinitely under limited conditions. So far, studies at home and abroad have confirmed that sparrows are the overlord of small birds, and more than 90% of artificial nests with sparrows in urban gardens are occupied by sparrows. Therefore, hanging artificial nest boxes in urban garden areas should mainly focus on the positive impact on teenagers and social fashion through these activities. The concept of "planting trees for ten years and educating people for a hundred years" is very appropriate for wildlife protection. It is reported by some media that the number of birds in a city park has increased by 17 times in a few years through the "bird recruitment project", which is an exaggeration that lacks understanding of the above common sense.

In recent years, the activity of "taming birds, flying and catching insects", which has risen widely in China, is also a waste of money and misleading the public's enthusiasm for birds. First of all, the domestic grey magpie and red-billed blue magpie are not typical insect-eating birds, but omnivorous birds; Secondly, this practice of "training for thousands of days and using it for a while" not only consumes manpower and material resources, but also easily leads to reproductive death; Moreover, when flying on the spot, the places that the pilots can reach are extremely limited, and the food that can be provided in a limited environment is also limited. The reason for "returning to the cage as soon as the whistle rings" is that the food in the cage is superior to nature. So this is an acrobatic performance of bird training rather than "biological control". Even real insect-eating birds, the only feasible way to protect and utilize them is to protect them in nature and let them thrive without spending a lot of money and manpower as "nannies". Changing bird-loving activities from cages to nature requires extensive and in-depth scientific popularization and changes in some traditional social consciousness.

(3) Effects of bird predation on plant diffusion Many birds are pollinators and pollinators of plants, such as hummingbirds, honeybees, sunbirds, woodpeckers and rust-eyed birds. Birds that feed on plant seeds or fruits will have some undigested seeds excreted with feces. These seeds that pass through the digestive tract of birds and are discharged with feces are more likely to germinate and will spread widely with the flight of birds. As we all know, plants on some ocean islands are spread by birds. Star Jay, Jay and some woodpeckers have the habit of storing plant seeds in autumn. Hundreds of conifer cones or chestnut seeds can be stored in tree holes several kilometers away. Some people think that this is the main reason for the expansion of chestnut forests in Europe and America in history.

Second, bird hunting.

There are mainly some birds-hunting birds, such as chicken-shaped order, goose-shaped order, pigeon, bird-shaped order, some crake, bone top and so on. They are birds with rapid population growth, seasonal aggregation, high economic value such as meat and feathers. On the basis of fully studying its fecundity and population dynamics, reasonable hunting will bring great economic benefits.

Sports or leisure hunting is very popular in many developed countries, and quantitative hunting is an entertainment activity in the specified hunting grounds and hunting periods. The state distributes hunting license and other service income, with an annual income of several hundred million dollars. In order to meet this need, there are specialized research institutions to study the ecology and population dynamics of prey for a long time, and artificially raise and breed a large number of prey (such as ring-necked pheasants, gray partridges, etc.). ), and regularly released to the wild hunting. Therefore, this is not only a measure to meet the needs of human cultural life as much as possible on the premise of protecting wildlife resources, but also a management model to transform grains into high-protein meat products.

Third, bird damage.

The harm caused by birds is often local, which varies with time, place, people's understanding and specific needs. The most obvious is the harm of agricultural birds, such as geese, parrots, pheasants, pigeons and many species of passeriformes, such as Corvidae, Sparidae and Ornithidae, all like to eat grains or peck at seedlings, among which sparrows are the most famous. On the basis of weighing the gains and losses, choose the appropriate method to control. In the case of relatively low productivity and living standards, the contradiction between "people and birds competing for food" is very acute. With the improvement of aquaculture technology and the change of social demand, the understanding will also change. It is also possible to turn harm into benefit. The practice of keeping pheasants for hunting mentioned above is an example.

"Bird collision" is an accident that happens when an airplane collides with a large group of migratory birds during the voyage, which usually happens when the airplane takes off, lands or flies at low altitude. Since turbojet engine replaced propeller propeller in 1960s, there have been more and more air crashes caused by birds being inhaled by turbine inlet. Therefore, when choosing airports (especially coastal airports), we should know the species, seasons, migration direction and altitude of migratory birds in this area. After the airport is completed, it is necessary to monitor the activities of birds all year round. It is necessary to transform the ecological environment near the airport and develop some comprehensive technologies of physics, chemistry and biology to drive away birds.

Birds can carry some bacteria, fungi and parasites, and some can spread among poultry, livestock or humans. Bird fever has been prevalent in more than a dozen countries in the world, and the mortality rate is as high as 1/3. So far, there are more than 20 kinds of infectious diseases related to birds. Therefore, it is very urgent to carry out the research on bird diseases and parasites and find out their transmission routes and their relationship with human health for the protection of bird and human health.