The release of 100 birds 132 years ago now costs the United States more than 5 billion a year: a headache

In the sky, the most spectacular performance of flying animals may be the “flock of starlings”, in which hundreds of thousands of starlings form a group and fly together in the air like an ink painting.

This air show usually takes place in the early evening and lasts about 45 minutes, and then all the starlings land together and the sky returns to calm.

Viewed from a distance, the “flock of starlings” could be described as picturesque, but for the region being experienced, it was a disaster.

In 2020, it happened once in a parking lot in Houston, USA. Tens of thousands of starlings circled and chirped like crows, and bird droppings fell into the parking lot like rain.

After the air show, they parked on the roof and chirped, fell on the land and kept jumping, and the whole parking lot was covered with black starlings.

While “flocking of starlings” is a biological attribute that they do in habitats around the world, tens of thousands at a time are now largely confined to the United States.

European starling: one of the world’s top 100 invasive species

Starlings are the general term for passerine starlings. There are currently 107 known species in the world. They are distributed all over the world, and it is the European starlings that complete the feat of “flying starlings”.

The origin of European starlings is mainly in Europe, and there are also all distributions in northern Africa and northwestern Asia, and they are also found in the northwestern region of our country.

However, for a variety of reasons, they were brought around the world, and now they have established wild populations in North America, Australia, and southern Africa.

There is a very strange fact about European starlings, that their populations have been declining in Europe and other places of origin, and they are not doing well, but as an invasive species, they have unprecedented success in North America and have even been recognized by international nature. The Union for Conservation (IUCN) included in the list of the 100 worst invasive species in the world.

According to statistics in 2004, the number of European starlings in the world was about 310 million at that time, while there were almost 200 million in North America, mainly in the United States.

Although 200 million may not seem like a lot, for this highly gregarious bird, they have amazing destructive power to the area.

The destructive power of European starlings in North America

European starlings are highly omnivorous birds, eating basically everything, and they are also capable of eating 7-23 grams of animal food and 20-40 grams of plant food per day.

This omnivorous behavior, coupled with their numbers, is the first to affect many native birds, after all habitats have limited food resources.

Because of this, some native birds have been pushed to the brink of extinction, and European starlings not only overwhelm their fellows in food, they also secretly eat the eggs and chicks of other species.

For humans, they tear up farmers’ crops. European starlings’ beaks are great for prying and probing, and they can easily dig up and eat buried seeds, as well as ground grains and fruits.

Crop yields in some parts of North America are still down 17 percent a year because of European starlings, even though farmers have done a lot of protection.

For domestication, European starlings snatch high-quality feed. Some farmers will include high-protein foods in their feed, but European starlings will selectively eat those high-protein foods.

During the winter season, cattle feed costs are estimated to be $84 per 1,000 European starlings, and this figure increases as feed costs increase.

In addition to causing economic damage to agriculture, they also transmit disease, and due to their highly gregarious lifestyle, European starlings are carriers of many infectious pathogens.

A survey of 300 European starlings in six US states found that 99% of the starlings had external fleas, mites or ticks, and 95% carried internal parasites, mainly various types of worms.

This makes the European starlings themselves and their feces a source of infection, and some farms have caused the disease and death of livestock collectively due to the invasion of European starlings.

In fact, the droppings of European starlings not only bring disease, it can also kill trees in their habitats because of too much.

European starlings can form very large populations in urban centers, woodlands and reeds, and in some sparsely populated habitats, when the number of European starlings exceeds a million, their droppings can even accumulate 30 cm high.

In urban areas, their acidic feces can corrode many things, such as car paint, and cause problems for residents.

Another invasive bird in the United States is the sparrow, which has also caused a lot of damage. According to statistics, the sparrow and starling together cause at least 1 billion US dollars in agricultural losses in the United States each year, of which the European starling accounts for at least 800 million US dollars ( Editor’s note: about 5.35 billion yuan).

Most worrying is not the economic damage they cause, but the threat they pose to aircraft.

In 1960, a plane landing from Boston was attacked by a swarm of European starlings, which struck the plane and got caught in the engine, eventually causing the plane to crash, killing 62 people, making it the deadliest bird-related accident to date airplane accident.

Perhaps because of this, European starlings, which have a more beautiful chirping (they can even imitate the sounds of other animals after hearing it once), are also regarded as noise pollution.

How did European starlings get into North America?

In fact, the flood of European starlings in North America is very incredible, especially now that all European starlings in North America are descendants of 100 starlings released 132 years ago.

The European starling is featured in Shakespeare’s play because of its super vocal ability – a talking bird.

At the end of the 19th century, a German immigrant named Eugene Schiefering in the United States was an avid Shakespeare fan, and because of his obsession with Shakespeare’s works, he hoped that the United States would also have European starlings.

In 1890, the opportunity finally came. He was elected as the chairman of the American Domestication Association. The purpose of this association was to introduce species from other places to increase the diversity of species in the United States. At that time, people did not have the concept of invasive species.

There is no doubt that the European starling was introduced, but aside from Eugene’s personal selfishness, the main purpose at that time was to use the European starling to control agricultural pests.

European starlings have no requirements for bird nests, and can build nests at any gap.

That is, in this year, Eugene released 60 starlings brought from Europe in New York’s Central Park, but when the first winter came, he still could not find the starling’s nest, so he released it the next year. 40 were added as a quantity.

However, to Eugene Schiefering’s surprise, in the days that followed, those 100 starlings (and probably far fewer than that number) became 200 million, making North America miserable. .

We know that genetic diversity is key to organisms adapting to different habitats, but now all European starlings, from Mexico to Alaska, are genetically remarkably similar.

At the same time, because they have bred for so many generations, virtually any two starlings in North America are now more genetically similar than any two of the original 100.

Scientists still don’t know exactly how they adapted to the different habitats in North America, but their numbers have begun to dwindle in recent years.

Since 1970, the number of European starlings in North America has declined by at least 50%, in fact, the last count of European starlings in North America was almost 93 million.

This may be due to climate change and human activity, after all bird populations are declining around the world, but it may also be caused by genetic bottlenecks.

at last

There is a lot of research on European starlings right now, and in addition to being the most destructive invasive species, people are trying to understand how their genetic diversity affects populations, which can be helpful for endangered species.

Plus, their spectacular ‘starling flock’ is also very interesting, as is how they work together in a collective flight of such a large population.

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