Too much of anything can be a problem...
... Too much water in the wrong place at the wrong time is a flood. And too many birds in the wrong place can be a problem as well.
This week's Challenge highlights a couple of wrong-place & too-many times when people went to work to fix the problem, but it completely and utterly failed. These aren't hard, but are pretty amazing in their details. Can you figure out what's going on in each of these Challenges?
1. Too many birds really can be a problem. In one famous incident, an entire "War" was declared on a particular kind of bird. Big guns were brought out, the campaign planned, thousands of shots were fired, and it all ended in a dismal failure. Where was this war? What kind of birds were being fought? And in the end, what happened?
2. Too many insects can be a problem as well, especially when then fly around en masse. Can you find the largest grouping of insects that caused enormous problems with the local agriculture? Why do those insects group together? And why do those groupings finally end?
These Challenges can take you far into some fascinating rabbit holes (another kind of pest in some locations), but keep your wits about you and let us know how you answered these Challenges.
As always, we're interested in how you found the solutions to these Challenge questions. Let us know in the comments.
Search on!
now shilling insurance…
ReplyDeletewith Doug…
so many choices…
Khapra beetle
Trogoderma granarium
USDA
the flip side
yummers… side dish to have with the Emu?
but attractive…
Trying a first quick search. Started with [birds causing war]
ReplyDeleteThe two first results are very interesting. The first, is I think, the one we're looking for. Emu war. The Second writes about pigeons and their use in war communication and how they helped. Even movies and awards for these birds.
Next tried [Similar to Emu War]
The Telegraph article is behind pay wall so I couldn't read.
There are other sources for the Emu War and this article about "new war" from 2020
Ee-moo?! NPR’s ‘absurd’ pronunciation starts new emu war in Australia
Next tried [ Emu War unknown facts]
DeleteThe end result of the Emu War was that the flightless birds prevailed and humans with their mighty firepower lost the war. The Emus did eventually leave not because they succumbed to the machine guns but because the crops were harvested and there was nothing left for them to eat.
Then tried searching about the war in New Zealand. Nothing there. But Emu is there now, farmed. And: The Emu is the second largest living bird. Learned about Moa birds.
About insects:
[Insects causing big problems in agriculture]
Then similar and later, [biggest insect problems agriculture in history]
Plant pests: The biggest threats to food security? 2011
The desert locust. Also mentions: "Henry Ford's attempts to grow rubber for car tyres in the eponymous Fordlandia, Brazil, losing him an investment (in today's terms) of $250m (£156m)." This due to another pest.
[biggest pests agriculture] mentions the current ones in article to be read in kew org
Next tried [ insects causing problems in history]
DeleteUsually this happens under drought or very dry conditions, since their egg pods are vulnerable to fungus in wet soil. When the soil is very dry, swarms can develop.
I found a list of 10 biggest problems by insects but lost it.
[Insect swarms in history]
Related questions gives good answers too. Not all swarms are bad. And results are interesting too.
What makes a locust a locust? 2020 Very interesting. Article also mentions how humans are fighting them.
hi Ramón… was this the 'ten list'?
Delete10 insect pests
more things to keep one from sleeping…
G.I. list
mo'…
current
btw, I only had 3.14… pi hours
pi
he has pi icons…
" Bizarro has also given the world of comic strips signature icons, such as his ongoing placements of eyeballs, pieces of pie, aliens in space ships and somewhat menacing bunnies."
example
ASU…@4:16 9n - Emus!
DeleteASU site - GLI
Impressed that you spotted the emus at 4:16 -- that's a remarkable level of detail!
DeleteThanks Remmij. No, the list was more like this one
DeleteKew list is also a good one. As Dr. Russell said, great Emu catch on video
Next tried [ Cuáles han sido las peores pestes en la agricultura]
Delete150 millions locusts per km2
Next tried [ how alberta avoids rats] because saw again a show about Ratatouille and there they mentioned this and also Norwegian rats.
DeleteThe process
[Biggest pests destroy crops]
1/4 of our crops
off topic - Ramón - when you are checking out cones to your south… does seem to be a tourist draw - it would be iffy on the edge…
DeleteVillarica
another view
Thanks Remmij. Great videos. Here also some people have taken videos of Popocatépetl. It's very dangerous, but they keep doing it. They do them anonymously and TV and other media try not to show, but looks impressive. Here is one from 2016 that was made flying : https://youtu.be/tUn1TTK4fFQ
Deletethanks for the view over Popocatépetl…
Delete"the now-disappeared Captain Juan de Dios Ortiz" cartel victim?
sí, muy peligroso, pero hay peligros por todas partes ...
they do some crazy things with powered micro light paragliders
The List of Dangers…
Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor — NOT arrowing birds
ReplyDeleteanother depiction…
Order of the Garter
seem quite cuddly…
ReplyDeleteThe first one is definitely the Emu War of 1932. The second might be the Rocky Mountain locust infestation of 1874 that devoured crops.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDelete[what was the war on birds]
finds lots of hits like this one https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/in-1932-australia-declared-war-on-emus-and-lost The 1932 war was in Western Australia. The birds were emus migrating to breeding grounds. farmers objected. Govt sent in WW1 troops with machine guns. The big flocks dispersed so few were killed over the month long campaign. The birds won are still there today--the descendants anyway.
2.
[ what is the largest grouping of insects that caused enormous problems] lots of hits like this one: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/invertebrates/group/locusts/
During dry spells, solitary locusts are forced together in the patchy areas of land with remaining vegetation. This sudden crowding releases serotonin in their central nervous systems that makes locusts more sociable and promotes rapid movements and more varied appetite.
When rains return—producing moist soil and abundant green plants—those environmental conditions create a perfect storm: Locusts begin to produce rapidly and become even more crowded together. In these circumstances, they shift completely from their solitary lifestyle to a group lifestyle in what’s called the gregarious phase. Locusts can even change color and body shape when they move into this phase. Their endurance increases and even their brains get larger.
Locusts can become gregarious at any point in their lifecycle.
When rains return—producing moist soil and abundant green plants—those environmental conditions create a perfect storm: Locusts begin to reproduce rapidly and become even more crowded together. In these circumstances, they shift completely from their solitary lifestyle to a group lifestyle in what’s called the gregarious phase. Locusts can even change color and body shape when they move into this phase. Their endurance increases and even their brains get larger.
THE LIFE OF A LOCUST
Locusts move through several phases before maturing into flying adults. At any point in that process they can turn gregarious—if conditions are right. Transformations in their behavior and physical traits can eventually be reversed, or they can persist and be passed on to offspring.
Swarming
Locust swarms are typically in motion and can cover vast distances—some species may travel 81 miles or more a day. They can stay in the air for long periods, regularly taking nonstop trips across the Red Sea. In 1954, a swarm flew from northwest Africa to Great Britain, while in 1988, another made the lengthy trek from West Africa to the Caribbean, a trip of more than 3,100 miles in just 10 days.
Locust swarms devastate crops and cause major agricultural damage, which can lead to famine and starvation. Locusts occur in many parts of the world, but today locusts are most destructive in subsistence farming regions of Africa.
The desert locust (Schistocerca gregaria) is a notorious species. Found in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, this species inhabits an area of about six million square miles, or 30 countries, during a quiet period. During a plague, when large swarms descend upon a region, however, these locusts can spread out across some 60 countries and cover a fifth of Earth's land surface. Desert locust plagues threaten the economic livelihood of a tenth of humans.
A desert locust swarm can be 460 square miles in size and pack between 40 and 80 million locusts into less than half a square mile. Each locust can eat its weight in plants each day, so a swarm of such size would eat 423 million pounds of plants every day. To put it into context, a swarm the size of Paris can eat the same amount of food in one day as half the population of France.
hey, if they can stop a locomotive…
ReplyDelete12 trillion…!
kansaspedia
Yow! Fascinating finds! Thanks.
DeleteI also found a war against Sparrows that nearly drove its species into extinction. MaoZeDong declared the sparrow to be a pest and lead a crusade to eradicate this bird. Although successful , this lead to an ecological imbalance as the sparrow ate locusts. The locust population were left unchecked and they decimated crops and agriculture in the entire country , causing a widespread famine.
ReplyDeleteMao Ze Dong eventually had to import sparrows from the Soviet Union!
4 pests - unintended/unforeseen consequences… bedbugs & cockroaches as subs…
Deletevisual
interesting format - audio
The Four Books - human sparrows
a version
also by Daniel Choi
a visualization of the Great Leap…
chinese sparrow
attempted neutral view…
'Often called a “feathered locust,” the Red-billed Quelea'
DeleteRemmij, reading your answer,made me remember that I read a few years ago about a city or county in which parrots are not welcome anymore. Someone brought them, they multiplied and now, people wants to kill them. I'll look for that story
DeleteEmu War in Australia. The emus won, only 986 of the roughly 20,000 emus were killed, and 9,860 bullets had been used up.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2014/01/great-emu-war-1932/