Thread by @ClimateBen

The killing of 6 billion birds per year:

5.5 billion: cats & buildings
52 million: EU legal hunting
40 million: US industry
36 million: EU & Med. poachers
2.6 million: harvesting tractors Spain
etc

And 95% of the world's seabirds will die having ingested plastic by 2050.

Domestic cats kill between 1.4 and 3.7 billion birds and between 6.9 and 20.7 billion mammals (mostly mice, shrews, rabbits, squirrels, and voles) each year.

businessinsider.fr/us/cats-kill-b…

'Scientists estimate an astounding upper-level figure of 1 billion birds that die in the U.S. each year from building collisions. Making matters worse, 40 percent of the world’s bird species are already in decline.' truthout.org/articles/build…

'Human-related activities destroy roughly 269 million birds and 2 million bird nests in Canada each year.'

99% of deaths caused by 'impacts of feral and pet cats, and collisions with buildings, vehicles, and electricity transmission and distribution lines'birdsontheedge.org/2013/10/03/how…

In the UK, the British Trust for Ornithology estimated a few years ago that 100 million bird strikes occurred each year, of which a third are fatal.bbc.com/news/magazine-…

"You see that carnage and you know there are 500 more pits with oil on them and you can’t see the bottom,” Mowad said. “It’s an ‘Oh, my God’ moment. If there are this many dead birds in this pit, can you imagine what’s in the others?”

motherjones.com/environment/20…

82 species of wild bird which may be legally hunted including

1,607,964 shot Quails,
522,253 Teal,
107,802 Lapwings,
205,577 Snipe,
973,414 Woodcocks,
1,455,208 Turtle Doves,
898,958 Skylarks

and other migratory species of conservation concern'

realwire.com/releases/52-mi…

In Andalusia in Spain, 2.6 million birds are killed by harvesting tractors every winter.

'The light of the machines dazzle and disorientate the birds, who end up being sucked into them “on a catastrophic scale”'

Also occurs in France, Italy & Portugal.

independent.co.uk/environment/so…

'Across the wider Mediterranean, poachers kill and trap between 11 million and 36 million birds annually in 26 different countries.' news.mongabay.com/2019/01/in-mal…

Airport mist nets kill at least 20 million birds annually: inkstonenews.com/china/birds-be…

A million seabirds are said to be dying each year due to plastic, but I'd imagine the actual figure is far, far higher...

https://twitter.com/ClimateBen/status/1138763484659879937?s=19