@oden actually one king of one island very recently conquered the rest. They used to all be separate kingdoms. If Kamehameha can annex it how come we can’t
@@jerryjiang6009 Expect species like bison, wolves, and bald eagles are bouncing back from extinction, but regardless it is good to hear that China is making an effort to bringing back endemic species from extinction.
@@jerryjiang6009 literally two years ago two large freshwater species, both endemic to China, were declared extinct, I'm sure the Chinese people are trying to help, but as long as the Chinese government keeps building dams and poorly regulating emissions, it's not going to get much better. Also, I'm not a fan of your combative tone
@@RedCommunistDragon things got far worse for their animals after Mao. Industrialization (and the later reintroduction of the profit motive) did in China what it’s done to the rest of the worlds eco systems, just in a much quicker time span, for multiple historical reasons. That’s no defense of Mao, or the intense damage caused during the Great Leap Forward, but it is a point that we ought not be reductive, and most definitely ought not act “holier than thou”, given our own history of environmental destruction in the west. (If you’re not part of the west, fair enough, but chances are our “values” have been exported to your country, and as per usual with mixed results.) ✌️
@@maherkamer8872 four species: Banded Sea Krait; Yellow-bellied Sea Snake; Brown-lipped Krait; and New Caledonian Sea Krait. All vagrants, which are native (nobody introduced them to NZ)
Well china as become what the USA once was as far as production .We were as guilty at creating extinctions has the Chinese are now.The great lakes were once becoming endangered but since all the production has left the region of the Great lakes have highly improved.Each and everything in nature as it's place working together to create as well as maintain.Yep birds love bugs and it's just nature at work.Noteing that even diseases among animals and plants is just nature at work controlling overpopulation of both species.. Nature is definitely a self-maintaining situation.. Unfortunately probably would be better off without man's intervention though. Every little thing taken from nature as a catastrophic effect on the environment as well as nature it's self. One-hand feeds the other so to speak..
@@edbollett9083America still has plenty of production. The thing is, our industry has learned somewhat from its mistakes and people being upset at them Chinese industry took all of our stuff without any of the lessons learned on the way to getting that stuff It just isn't the same, dude
You know how China brags about eliminating extreme poverty? People were eating pigeons and sparrows because they could never afford any other meat. *Most* Chinese people over age 40 spent at least some of their childhood so poor that they would have had some food insecurity. (Not MANY Chinese people, MOST Chinese people. These would be the ones you mostly don't meet outside China.) Either they weren't getting enough food, or they weren't getting balanced diets. That's the kind of poverty they have eliminated. Maybe that's why my experience of wildlife in the Chinese countryside is different from @aubreyleonae4108's friend's experience. Old habits die hard, though. Some people are still running around eating anything they catch. Most young people do not. And most of China was never about eating weird shit for the sake of eating weird shit. It's the southwest where they've got strong traditions of doing that kind of thing. But hey, on the subject of eating wild birds, I do remember something that struck me about the few pigeons I saw in Beijing. Almost all of them were brown and white, not the typical gray and iridescent of most rock pigeons. GENETIC BOTTLENECK. And if you look around, you *can* find squab in supermarkets. Personally, I think the problem in the cities (where there really is a noticeable lack of most birds, especially if you get away from waterways) is pesticide use. In my area, there are ridiculous numbers of flowering plants. But few if any bees. There was a vacant lot where they planted *acres* of flowers while it waited to be built upon. A dozen different varieties, in bloom for months. I'd go out there and see a handful of pollinators. There's so much food for them, but there are hardly any present. Something is keeping them away. what else could it be but pesticides (particularly given that I've witnessed them being sprayed with fogger trucks)?
@@RejectHumanityReturn2Monke Most of China doesn't really have a smog problem. Beijing gets a lot of press because 1: it's full of foreigners, who are your source of information, and who mostly never travel more than 5 kilometers from the nearest McDonald's. 2: it has unusual geography that traps emissions in the area. 3: they used to have a lot of non-point particulate sources, people burning all kinds of crap all winter for cooking and heat. 4: Industrial emissions in the suburbs. The last two were huge problems in the northern cities. 3 is pretty much gone in all of urban China. 4 isn't over, but is getting continually better all the time. That's why there hasn't been another Airpocalypse. (I was in Beijing for the first one, BTW.)
It's really interesting that Hawaii didn't have any native reptiles, considering reptiles are mostly the first flightless vertebrates to conquer tropical islands. They are often good swimmers and can survive without food or water for much longer than mammals so they're more likely to survive being carried over by storms and driftwood. But I guess Hawaii is just too distant from any other land even for reptiles. Kinda ironic on that note that Hawaii was the filming location for Jurassic Park.
@@supercharger5727 Well tbf animals don't really care what we define as country. Liechtenstein counts as country Hawaii does not, it's just a made up definition at the end of the day.
In my local area in Canada, we no longer have any ladybugs appearing anywhere in the town. When locals attempt to order ladybugs online to release them, they just die off around here. They can't be found either within the next 3 towns as well, which is causing increasing infestations of aphids, thrips and various other bugs to swarm up in gardens & farm lands. No more Monarch butterflies to be seen either, the Oregon Forest Snail which was on the local endangered list is dwindling away so quickly. The fox population up in the mountains went down from an estimated 36 to 8 due to poaching & deforestation. I have made attempts to bring up these kinds of topics to local journalists, but they say they don't want to tarnish their hard earned reputation making articles about nature.
I live in Oregon the snail is pretty common here and I see them regularly in my backyard, same with millions of monarch butterflies that swamp the Beaverton area "'city next to Portland." The vast majority of animals and plants you think are native to Canada simply aren't, everything you see hasn't existed for more than 10,000 years. The last time Canada had any true native animals was over 2.1 millions years ago. Everything in Canada either came from Alaska or the United States. If you ever look at historical ranges of any animal you see the largest populations originate from the US, Alaska and Siberia and are sparsely populated along the edges of the Canadian US borders. Sense Canada has close ties with Britain you guys have similar wildlife protection laws same with Britain's other colonies, Australia and New Zealand, one of them refers to invasive species trading. Australia taps out anything that's been there since 15,000 is native with some states concluding that the dingo is an invasive introduced species for example. I think this would be an interesting news piece.
@@baneofbanes you sure about that bud? If I'm wrong explain because geologist nor would a paleonologist disagree. Have you ever visited Canada? To research the biology or prehistoric landscape prior to the younger Dryes period?
@@quintontarlton yes you are wrong. And yes actual geologists, paleontologists, and most of all biologists would disagree with you. Was the glaciers receded new environments were opened up and they were colonized naturally by wildlife from the lower regions of North America. Aka they’re native to Canada. Same process happened in Alaska. You have no idea how this stuff works and it’s obvious.
@@baneofbanes I have documented over 15,000 chordates with 1000s hrs of writing that have existed as far back as 72 million years in North America, I'm not disagreeing that these animals will remain and should. I'm just pointed out my own research of things I observed while in Alberta Canada last summer. There are actually quite a few geologists that point this out about Canada and there's tons of videos on RUclips that specially talk about absence, let alone there were people who did modify the environment in Canada. The Amazon is a great example of modifications it's almost 8-15 times larger than it should be due to human activities this is a fact no geologists, paleonologists or archaeologists deny. When I speak about vagrants and diversification of species in a new region I'm talking directly about what point do we claim something is invasive or native. The short answer is 'no'. A longer answer is as follows: Species naturally change their ranges over time, usually just by small amounts - invading areas contiguous with where they lived before - but sometimes by long-distance dispersal even across ocean gaps. Monkeys reached South America from Africa, presumably by rafting on trees washed out to sea, for example. Over 30 million years "please check that number!" they have radiated into many new species, adapted to their new environment, and their competitors (sloths, marsupials etc.) and predators. Clearly they are now native, and so will the descendants of grey squirrels in Europe be after 30 million years. So 'yes', at some point between 0 and 30 million years. Where you draw the line is pretty arbitrary. Is the dingo native in Australia after 4000 [again check!) year? No, but it is on its way: genetically and behaviorally distinct from the dogs that came with people, but still the same species. Canada is considered a non biodiverse region from 2.1 million years when it was covered and even now when it's not. There's many pictures on Google showing its diversity. So the only thing Canada unquestionably has unique are narwhals which isn't very impressive. Not only that Canada hasn't had time to create subspecies which takes less time than for animals to speciate.
Mauritius is a country which has no native land mammals except for a species of flying fox/fruit bat. It also has no venomous snakes, but until 1975, had two endemic snake species of the family Bolyeriidae, though now only one remains. There are no snakes on the main island any more, with the only species left (keel-scaled splitjaw, Casarea dussumieri) relegated to a few surrounding islands.
Insects are a major litmus test. Here in California insect biodiversity has been impacted severely. Nocturnal Insects are conspicuously absent from lights and cars/trucks don't have dead insect splatter anymore. The only Insects now are non native pest species.
Here in Mississippi I remember as a kid huge swarms of insects hovering around street lights and porch lights on summer nights. Also you couldn’t drive too far at night before your windshield was covered in dead insects. Nowadays in most areas this is no more. 😢
I swear my mom and I were just discussing this very topic a couple of days ago. Here in central Texas, "lighting bugs" were a common part of the environment back in the 80s and 90s. I haven't seen one in more than 20 years now.
yes that's a good point and there are quite a few mammals that have gone extinct in Japan in recent history. I think the bears have taken over the wolves role
@@TsukiCove There are some campaigns to bring some of those species back to Japan by introducing close subspecies/relatives. Like the wolf, otter and sea lion
Rats, cats, weasel, Oh My! In all seriousness this sad when considering all the beautiful species we have lost and yet we run headlong oblivious to the consequences of our actions. It's just more, more, more.
I heard years ago that Europeans had eaten the smaller species of their birds. When I think back to stories of boys raiding birds’ nests, I feel very sad. They didn’t understand what they were doing.
I had the opportunity to travel extensively through China in the 1990s. I was shocked at how little wildlife there was in that whole country, everything has been eaten. We're going up the side of a mountain in a gondola in a very remote region near the Thailand border. And our tour guide said if you look real carefully, and we're very lucky you might see a squirrel. How sad
Gluttonous consumers with no regard for anything outside their own comfort, The CCP has poisoned the noble Chinese people's culture. Hopefully the whole rotten thing falls apart and the Chinese can enjoy their beautiful country without the vultures in charge preying on the struggles of their daily lives.
Addendum: Irelands ecosystem is FAR from healthy, it ranks even lower than the UK in terms of biodiversity. Making it one of the unhealthiest ecosystems in the entire world.
What tiny crumbs of native habitat remain in Britain and Ireland are absolutely gorgeous, but native ecosystems make up like FIVE percent of Ireland’s land area. The U.K. is better, but not much. Very sad
Scotland is one area that needs rewilding from what I've seen this past year or so in videos. Apparently the barren hillsides are not natural but the result of grazers running amok and eating everything down to the ground so no new trees can grow. They actually ban fences so you can't protect plants on your land.
Antarctica used to have sloths, marsupials and terror birds in the way distant past, but it got too cold and all the plants died. Now, all the animals that live in Antarctica depend on the sea in some way, like the penguins and seals.
The kiwi bird are so cute as well as the only species of ground parrot. Too bad about the domestic cats taking advantage of both birds' lack of defences to predators...that is why its importent to keep your cats indoors no matter where you live.
It's not true that China has no birds! As many videos and TV programmes will testify. And indeed many field guides to the birds of China. Don't believe everything you read or see on social media.
Thank you for another excellent video! Today I know more about snakes in the U.K. than I ever did. Never would have thought there could be adders in Scotland! Amazing!
Thank you i appreciate the support. Yeah it's strange to think about, i live in south west England and we mostly have grass snakes and adders. The smooth snakes are only found in a few places in the south but they're normally found in the same place as sand lizards which are the UK's coolest lizard in my opinion.
@@TsukiCove china has a billion people, they eat everything is why there is no birds. if your dog fido is missing, probably end up at the local restaurant in shanghai when its bring a dog eat for free night.
Guam is another place that should have made your list. It has no birds. Again, man and introduced animals are to blame. World War II had a devastating effect on what birds remained on the island. By 1946, they were all gone. 😔😔😔
The absence of birds in Guam is due not directly to WWII, but to the highly invasive brown tree snake, which probably came to Guam from Indonesia as a stowaway on military cargo ships and planes. They have virtually single-handedly (if they had hands) eaten the entire bird population of Guam. It's greatly feared that, despite tight inspection measures of ships and aircraft now in place, the brown tree snake could spread to other Pacific island areas like Hawaii with similarly disastrous consequences.
This might sounds radical, but I sometimes whish I could temporary remove all people in certain areas to let nature restore itself. (Especially in China)
@@youtubestudiosucks978 It may not be as as crass as you suggest (hopefully). He is probably just an animal lover who wants animals to return to areas where they are gone. Sounds like you have never met the fellow in life, perhaps there is more to him than one might suspect? Without the dehumanizing veil of the internet, who can say? Besides in the commenters comment, it says “certain” areas. Who can say how many other areas of the world he meant? Lastly, he said “temporarily” which suggests nothing of something as drastic as “Hitlers Final Solution” or even of the Klan’s silent eugenics project. (I only mention those as examples of racism.) It’s (hopefully) just wishful thinking from the perspective of animals lost.
Any government-funded animal eradication measures are just disgusting, no matter where it happens or what animal it is. Millions of lives snuffed out just so a minor inconvenience is completely removed, only to make way for disaster. Will humans never learn?
Long Island, New York in the US is a suburb of New York City that has no native lizards that I'm aware of. However, a population of Italian wall lizards that escaped from a pet shop over 50 years ago have established a colony that is spreading across Long Island and has even reached the Bronx and Connecticut. It's believed they spread by following railroad tracks. I've seen wall lizards in the NY Botanical Garden in the Bronx, as well as in my sister's yard in Elmont, Long Island close to the location of the original lizard release.
Australia's weird in that it's a large nation with massive sprawling plains but no native large land predators or large four legged grazer. Kangaroos have taken the ecological place of deer or bovinae, with few natural predators except sometimes dingo though to a very limited degree.
I just returned from holidaying in the Philippines and couldn't believe that with so many beaches they don't have any seagulls. There were a few pigeons scavenging the beaches though.
That's because of the natural biogeographical distribution of gulls. Similarly there are large areas of North America which have no native species of earthworms.
@@FYCH45 native earthworms were largely eliminated by the last Ice Age. The North American ice sheet scraped all the topsoil off virtually all of Canada and much of the northern US, eliminating native earthworms from those areas. The earthworms returning to those parts of North America now are actually invasive species from Europe that are highly disruptive and destructive to the native forest ecosystem.
@@JohnDrummondPhoto That's true. It shows that the biogeographical distribution of animals, plants, fungi etc. are of course determined by events such as climate change. It also poses a lot of questions. Since earthworms play a vital role in the ecosystems of most parts of the world, how did the North American forest ecosystem get along without them? Was a very slow recolonization of that ecosystem by earthworms from further south in the Americas already happening before the introduction of the European earthworms? What effect would that have had on the ecosystem?
@@FYCH45 the short answer is that the northern forests, when they returned, adapted over thousands of years to survive with a thick layer of decaying vegetation on the ground. The invasive earthworms recirculate that decaying matter into the soil faster than the native flora can handle it. As a result, many native plants are suffering, which affects insects, both of which affect animal life and overall biodiversity. The worms were introduced by Europeans over just the last few hundred years, largely intentionally for farmers. They then spread into the woods.
If we left it up to China, there wouldn't be an animal left on Earth. It seems every creature, other than humans, are endangered. The Chinese alligator is practically extinct. So is the panda, although there are many in zoos around the world. The white rhino in Africa is being poached in the name of Chinese medicine. Even the elephant is in danger because of them.
Most of their native turtle and tortoise species are critically endangered aswell. Also their seas have no fish left in them due to pollution and over fishing so they decided to trespass and sent boats to the coasts of South America and are fishing out their side of the ocean now too.
I've left comments on videos talking about how screwed up China is, and I've gotten replies from people from China saying, "Yeah, that's why I moved away from it."
When I lived in China there were birds. I used to listen to them sing outside my window all the time and saw them flying around. West Lake even has ducks. I have some pictures of them. Their songs kind of stand out to me, because they sound different than the birds here where I live in the United States.
@horseygurl143 not so much anymore, but they eat a lot more things than we do. Their Walmarts are a little strange, because the seafood section has aquariums lol I used to call it the pet aisle lol Like all the fish and stuff were still alive... and they ate a lot of parts that we wouldn't... like there was this fast food restaurant that had fried chicken cartilage. it looked like popcorn chicken lol they had lots of seafood and tofu too. They mostly eat pork though. If it didn't say specifically chicken or beef on the menu, then it was pork. They have lots of really good food though. If there is something I miss, I watch Chinese cooking videos on RUclips to find out how to make it 😅
The island nation of Malta has a bloated poacher population, and that has impacted the bird population. You can still see sparrows and pigeons, but anything else is shot and usually migratory. When a flamingo is spotted in the country, it usually has less than 2 hours, before it gets shot.
You could do a whole episode on Australia not only have we bought invasive animals here but we have also killed off a lot of them in one way or another
Australia is the perfect example of just how destructive humans can be. The fossil record shows that as soon as humans appeared, virtually all the large animals died off, most likely killed off by humans. And these were stone age humans, imagine how much more destructive we are now. In a way the country is lucky that humans introduced wild dogs that became dingos since they filled an important gap left by the extinct native creatures, otherwise it could have been even worse.
The brown snake really destroyed Guam birds, these snake are insane , one kept trying to get at my daughter though the window tapping on glass nonstop until we cut off its head. There were still a few birds when we lived there , they say all birds are gone now. Is that true, even the pop jays gone?
Literally almost every single bird you see on Guam now are invasive species. Black Drongo, Common Pigeon, Jungle Fowl, Eurasian Tree Sparrow and more. Virtually all the native bird species on guam has become extirpated or completely extinct.
I would like to point out one. There are no native boas in Florida. It's really odd because in the US there are the rubber boas along the Pacific coast and rosy boas in the southwest deserts. And near Florida itself you have cuban boas and Bimini boas, each of which exist naturally within 90 miles of Florida. And yet none have made it here and I can't find a good explanation as to why.
they might have arrived there in multiple waves through hurricanes, storms etc but due to environmental pressures couldn't get a foothold (too few in numbers, competition was too harsh in those particular timeframes etc) evolution takes many steps, most are failed ones we don't get to see
actually there is one group of animals that is missing almost everywhere: megafauna, or animals at weights if a metric ton and more. elephants, rhinos, giant landsloths; they used to be almost everywhere. however, they all disappeared with the end of the ice age and the start of the anthropozene. whether it was climate change that ended them (all genuine megafauna can be found around the equator, an area that already was warmer than average during the ice age) or human predation (the fossile record indicates a sharp decline of megafauna acroos the globe at the same time modern humans arrived at that part of the planet), or a combination of both is still up for debate. but the age of truly titanic animals came to an end all the same, and even big-but-nit-quite megafauna animals like bovines have become rare outside of human captivity. personally, i think humans ended the age of titans, as being big and strong was not an effective survival strategy against humans, who were smart enough to figure out ways around the massive size difference and had the cooperation to pull off successful hunts against big prey, much like lions and wolves do. it also has to be mentioned that modern humans used highly effective projectile weapons, and being larger made you an eadier target to those aswell.
That's cause Australia split off from South America and Antarctica before ungulates evolved and has been mostly isolated since then. Macropods like Kangaroos evolved to fill a similar niche to fast ungulates like deer and antelope and extinct Wombat-like Diprotodontidae evolved to fill a similar niche to wild bovines and rhinos.
Glad to see your channel grow!!! So much content every week =^) Love serpentzA and Laowhy86, and such a shame that the people of China have to suffer the consequences of their past =^( but they seem to be doing nothing tangible to help their ecology. If anything, they're ramping up their destruction and taking it overseas (belt & road initiative).
Belt and Road has lifted people out of poverty. A nightmare for the typical white westerner. You had your chance. But you choose to export bombs and chemicals. Don't be jealous now.
I figured China had a more general disregard for which animals they feed on, given the infamous common knowledge of eating dogs and such where most other people around the world don't. But I never realized it was to this extreme, it a shame really that China has a very poor biodiversity nowadays if this true. Kind of hard to believe, but it is a very much human thing to destroy. Edit: I do apologize to anyone who got offended by my frankly ignorant judgement on Chinese people. I'm reminded that any given individual have their own opinion on the matter, and that there's people on said county who are against the current situation.
All countries eat creatures that another does not - Horses, Rabbits, Guinea pigs, Ostrich, Crocodile, Deer, Squirrel, Frogs, Camel, Bush meats, Whales, Cows, Pigs etc... Some creatures are killed for trophy, hobby hunting , pelts, feathers etc.. Closest we're ever be to not being Hypocrites is to be Vegan or at least Vetagetarian eh..
I hope there are actual people in China that care about nature (and not just marketable pandas!), despite their government. I mean, with over a billion people, it would be weird otherwise.
just a note about New Zealand. It is not just the arrival of the Europeans that heavily effected the ecosystem. The arrival of the Maori were equally devastating. And they also introduced land mammals that had a big impact on the ecosystem, like the Polynesian Rat, and dogs.
There is not ONE single animal rights law in China, not one - the Chinese Communist Manifesto actually has it enshrined that Nature is a resource to be used in every way possible if it is for the advancement and betterment of Humans. Considering that most Chinese consider anything that hops, skips, jumps, runs, slithers, slides, glides, flies, swims, burrows, climbs, soars, hovers, creeps, crawls and wiggles as a resource it's no wonder there are no birds in China. The Chinese with their Belt and Road expansion, into every corner of the globe, are the single biggest threat to global biodiversity on the planet; if it moves, they see it as food. And I truly don't care if this is a xenophobic or anti-Sino comment, it's the truth.
Belt and road lifted many people out of poverty. What have you offer up? What about your government? Oh right. Let me guess. You gave them bombs and bullets. Lol
Regarding how China's treats its environment and wildlife, this is one of the many reasons why I am trying to get in the habit of not buying anything that comes out from there. That bag of disposable forks may have helped put enough smog in the atmosphere to smother Hedorah for all we know.
I live in Southern Arizona. We miss jaguars and ocelots that used to live here. Jaguars are missing totally on the US where they used to be common from Southern Texas to Southern California.
Egypt, italy, and indonesia outside of protected areas, are also missing birds. The italian country side is mostly silent if what i have read is correct. We are missing insects in my area. They are very rare except for mosquitos and ants and grasshoppers
This is fairly interesting but I wonder why Australia even as an island has always had native species of every niche although I would say, the animal that you would see the least in Australia is native amphibians, Cane Toads are a lot more common in Australia and are the biggest problem invasive species and I've only really seen Aussie frogs once or twice in my 30 years living in Australia but we do have a significant amount of native amphibians despite all this, all of them are frogs or toads, we have zero salamanders. Also Australia is interesting because all of our specific native species developed differently to most other countries and landmasses as the majority of our mammals are Marsupials and only one marsupial species is found outside of Australia and surprisingly enough Papua New Guinea.
South America was dominated by marsupials until the Panama land bridge allowed placentals in from North America iirc. I think they still have some different species down there?
I'm currently living and Mainland China and the claim "there are no/very few birds in China" definitely cannot be true at all. When I go hiking in the forest, I hear a lot of birds singing, in my neighborhood, bird voices often wake me up at 4 am when I let the window open over night. Also, I fondly remember when I was in Beijing there were giant swarms of crow birds gathering and flying around every evening. Of course, this is a large country, probably there are some places with fewer birds, but my day-to-day experience doesn't suggest there are only a few birds here.
I'm currently in China too (Chongqing city) but I've been to quite a few cities in China and have no idea what the video is talking about. A reason I bought earplugs was that so the birds wouldn't wake me up at 6am, and the traffic wouldn't wake me up at 8am as most windows in Chinese apartments are not properly insulated from sound.
I would like to see someone do a video on the mass extinction event caused by Polynesian expansion. Hawaii, the Marquesas, Tahiti, Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and New Zealand all lost thousands of species including the largest bird, largest Palm tree and hundreds of flightless bird species.
This video is a shame. Deliberatly lie that New Zealand has no native mamalls, and ,worse of all, China has no native birds is outrageous. This video is a fraud. Shame on you sir
@@Celticsnation412 You could do how much they can lift/push/bite down on based on their size but I guess it might be only composed of ants and dung beetles then.
I seen a lot of callousness when it comes to birds. I have seen some people in my country cheer when a cat kills a bird. Equating the birds to rats. Or people thinking it's cute their pet cat brought them a dead bird as a "present". I made sure to do my best to keep my pets away from nests but it seems pointless as there are plenty of stray cats and free roaming cats here. I have seen only 3 nests in the past year, and I never saw the chicks fledge. Instead I am greeted with destroyed nests and the scent of cat piss on the car. And to those defending the cats. I know it's cats because there are laws against freeroaming dogs in my area. So people keep their dogs in cages (sometimes too small for them in my opinion) or in their yards. I am in the middle of a city which means there are no predators like snakes or lizard. The only reptile I have ever seen here is a common house gecko. I went from liking cats to not liking them as much. I know it's their instinct but I would have at least prefer owners to keep their cats from killing local wildlife and not defend this freeroaming.
As I'm reading this, you are saying that you keep your cats away from bird nests. Have you considered keeping them indoors? Trapping and neutering feral cats?? There's more you can do than hope and pray.
I think many people though China had no birds because they go to the highly urbanize cities. Due to rapid urbanization and industrialization, a lot of natural habitat had been lost, so bird population had been decline greatly, but said China had no birds is ridiculous. Many of my birder friends had been going to China to photograph wild bird.
There are huge numbers of sparrows in China these days. In the main cities. In Beijing. Eradication of sparrows was a real thing but it failed miserably.
Has anyone considered the amount of poverty in some parts of China? I don't mean the official government records, but what humanity charities have reported, specifically in rural areas. Do people honestly think they would always respect nature and refuse to hunt wild animals if their family was starving? I'm not saying China is right in this. The government needs to create stronger environmental protection laws and it needs to enforce them. I think the blaming of individual Chinese people, however, is a little icky. There is a difference between a government, a culture, and its people. For instance, American CULTURE is racist, but when I speak on the topic I do my best not to speak about Americans as if each individual person is being racist, but place the blame on the society they grew up in, and which has impacted the way they think and act EVEN IF they would actively think of themselves as being non-rascist and would never purposefully support racist legislation. Only somehow, people end up doing just that. It propagates through the culture. And regardless of how much better some people think they are - oh, they could never be manipulated by media like those other poor fools - the truth is that EVERYONE is a product of the society in which they live. Culture is a part of who you are, it's unavoidable. So perhaps a better way to speak about the lack of birds in China, rather than blaming "those chinese people who will eat ANYTHING - everyone knows they eat dogs and have no respect for nature" maybe we should first do some introspection: A. Is it truely that sttange to eat a domesticated wolf? More strange than eating a domesticated bird? A domesticated hog? B. What is the difference between eating a pigeon and eating a chicken? In a way, with the amount of green house emissions created by factory farming, is eating a higjly process mass factory chicken actually, morally superior to eating a wild bird? Then we need to question the situations, economy, and hostorical events that have created this culture. Is it possible to work within that cultural framework rather than shaming and other people? Does acting as if your avaerage chinese citizen is somehow "disgusting" or "wierd" likely to make an positive change, or is it more likely to other an entire country, creating and spreading sterotypes that will only result in bigotry against people of chinese ancestory, even those living outside of China. Then we can ask where the blame should realky lie, and I think the clear answer there is with the government. With those in power and their lack of protection for wildlife. They havent tried to create a more environmental friendly cultural, and they have far, far more power than one small family shop trying to make a living that, sure, maybe sells cooked birds. There is only so much damage that one family alone can do, it is when it is taken as part of a larger sum, ine created by the government, that it becomes such a problem. I've met Chinese environmental activitist. Their outlook and methods are not the same as the ones we utalize in the west, but that is because they are working within their own cultural. Its a lesson feminist had to learn when they went to India. They wanted to enforce their version of western feminism onto a wholely different culture when the far, far more effective solution turned out to be to listen to actual women from India, hear what they are looking for and how they felt was the best way to achieve it. Im notsaying sexism is solved in India, but its not solved in America either. Im saying that people who understand the culture theyre working within have more luck changing that cultural than outsiders just declaring, "youre wrong, primitive, and disgusting".
@@Gildedmuse I understand having compassion and empathy, but it seems like you only extend those feelings to humans and not the millions of animals being slaughtered en masse. Where is their compassion and empathy?
@@chickensalad3535 I'm sorry it came off that way. I do respect all life. I'm unsure what I said that made you think I didn't and I certainly didn't mean to give that impression.
I was recently in Beijing, and was literally having trouble not stepping on excess abundance of sparrows. This seems like more like propaganda in the later 1990s and early 2000s........
ADVChina literally got their visas revoked a few years ago and are criticizing China now out of spite. The funny thing is, the two dudes 5-6 years ago were ridiculing people who do exactly that, and what do you know, turns out that pays more.
And China is such an easy target, any evidence presented to disprove of the claim can be easily dismissed by "ah that's just government propaganda". You can't win an argument like this, and it's pointless to try.
2;27 I would also think that island ecosystems can be badly damaged by a couple of years of unseasonal weather. Being an island it would be difficult to migrate to a more hospitable area. And if the original location recovered, how would you return to repopulate the place? Edit: Ireland's situation would imply that they broke away *before* the weather warmed up enough for the snakes to migrate into it.
You're recommending videos by SerpentZA ? The man who fled China after being caught trying to take 'illegal things' through the airport, and who now spends his time spewing hate.
I was in 5 countries in south east asia 3 we drove and we all noticed the lack of birds specially in wild areas on on the end I saw why. They eat them! BTW Hawaii didn't have ANYTHING.
Australia has no apex predator since the extinction of the Tasmanian tiger. Before that, the mainland's marsupial lion disappeared around when the Aboriginal people arrived.
Hawaii is not a country i know i just needed a title my bad please ignore :)
I mean it used to be so I don't think it really matters
No, its alright. hyrode said it first, but I just wanted to also say that I appreciate you acknowledging and using it as it's own country.
@oden actually one king of one island very recently conquered the rest. They used to all be separate kingdoms. If Kamehameha can annex it how come we can’t
The next should be animals that are only found in island ecosystem
It's illegally occupied since 1893 but yes, it is a country.
I feel like you could make an entire video talking about what's happened to china's wildlife
Mao happened
@@jerryjiang6009 Expect species like bison, wolves, and bald eagles are bouncing back from extinction, but regardless it is good to hear that China is making an effort to bringing back endemic species from extinction.
@@jerryjiang6009 literally two years ago two large freshwater species, both endemic to China, were declared extinct, I'm sure the Chinese people are trying to help, but as long as the Chinese government keeps building dams and poorly regulating emissions, it's not going to get much better.
Also, I'm not a fan of your combative tone
@@jerryjiang6009 China when they need to make their weewee go bigger and faster:
@@RedCommunistDragon things got far worse for their animals after Mao. Industrialization (and the later reintroduction of the profit motive) did in China what it’s done to the rest of the worlds eco systems, just in a much quicker time span, for multiple historical reasons.
That’s no defense of Mao, or the intense damage caused during the Great Leap Forward, but it is a point that we ought not be reductive, and most definitely ought not act “holier than thou”, given our own history of environmental destruction in the west. (If you’re not part of the west, fair enough, but chances are our “values” have been exported to your country, and as per usual with mixed results.) ✌️
Fun fact, NZ has got one native snake! A sea snake that visits our shores
Its not native...
If it's a part of a migration and habitat then yes they are.
But it’s not a land snake
@@sarahhammond6375it is native
@@maherkamer8872 four species: Banded Sea Krait; Yellow-bellied Sea Snake; Brown-lipped Krait; and New Caledonian Sea Krait. All vagrants, which are native (nobody introduced them to NZ)
Insects not eaten by birds can destroy so much food and they are very important for the world. Just like the bees. Thank you ❤
Thus when China killed their birds, they ended up with massive insect infestations that destroyed a lot of their crops and resulted in a famine
Well china as become what the USA once was as far as production .We were as guilty at creating extinctions has the Chinese are now.The great lakes were once becoming endangered but since all the production has left the region of the Great lakes have highly improved.Each and everything in nature as it's place working together to create as well as maintain.Yep birds love bugs and it's just nature at work.Noteing that even diseases among animals and plants is just nature at work controlling overpopulation of both species.. Nature is definitely a self-maintaining situation.. Unfortunately probably would be better off without man's intervention though. Every little thing taken from nature as a catastrophic effect on the environment as well as nature it's self. One-hand feeds the other so to speak..
40 million people would not agree with you, because they all died of starvation
The lack of birds in china now is a result of the lack of insects.
@@edbollett9083America still has plenty of production.
The thing is, our industry has learned somewhat from its mistakes and people being upset at them
Chinese industry took all of our stuff without any of the lessons learned on the way to getting that stuff
It just isn't the same, dude
A friend who traveled in China in the early 80s said that the lack of birds stuck with him the most from the experience.
they ate it all
Weird I would have thought seeing all the shoddy buildings, poison air and generally crappy condition of everything would stick out more so
With all that smog, those birds died from lung cancer most likely
You know how China brags about eliminating extreme poverty? People were eating pigeons and sparrows because they could never afford any other meat. *Most* Chinese people over age 40 spent at least some of their childhood so poor that they would have had some food insecurity. (Not MANY Chinese people, MOST Chinese people. These would be the ones you mostly don't meet outside China.) Either they weren't getting enough food, or they weren't getting balanced diets. That's the kind of poverty they have eliminated. Maybe that's why my experience of wildlife in the Chinese countryside is different from @aubreyleonae4108's friend's experience.
Old habits die hard, though. Some people are still running around eating anything they catch. Most young people do not. And most of China was never about eating weird shit for the sake of eating weird shit. It's the southwest where they've got strong traditions of doing that kind of thing.
But hey, on the subject of eating wild birds, I do remember something that struck me about the few pigeons I saw in Beijing. Almost all of them were brown and white, not the typical gray and iridescent of most rock pigeons. GENETIC BOTTLENECK. And if you look around, you *can* find squab in supermarkets.
Personally, I think the problem in the cities (where there really is a noticeable lack of most birds, especially if you get away from waterways) is pesticide use. In my area, there are ridiculous numbers of flowering plants. But few if any bees. There was a vacant lot where they planted *acres* of flowers while it waited to be built upon. A dozen different varieties, in bloom for months. I'd go out there and see a handful of pollinators. There's so much food for them, but there are hardly any present. Something is keeping them away. what else could it be but pesticides (particularly given that I've witnessed them being sprayed with fogger trucks)?
@@RejectHumanityReturn2Monke Most of China doesn't really have a smog problem. Beijing gets a lot of press because 1: it's full of foreigners, who are your source of information, and who mostly never travel more than 5 kilometers from the nearest McDonald's. 2: it has unusual geography that traps emissions in the area. 3: they used to have a lot of non-point particulate sources, people burning all kinds of crap all winter for cooking and heat. 4: Industrial emissions in the suburbs. The last two were huge problems in the northern cities. 3 is pretty much gone in all of urban China. 4 isn't over, but is getting continually better all the time. That's why there hasn't been another Airpocalypse. (I was in Beijing for the first one, BTW.)
It's really interesting that Hawaii didn't have any native reptiles, considering reptiles are mostly the first flightless vertebrates to conquer tropical islands. They are often good swimmers and can survive without food or water for much longer than mammals so they're more likely to survive being carried over by storms and driftwood. But I guess Hawaii is just too distant from any other land even for reptiles. Kinda ironic on that note that Hawaii was the filming location for Jurassic Park.
And the fact Hawaii was including in this video and was called a country is weird cause Hawaii isn’t a nation it’s a state
Very good point
@@supercharger5727 Well tbf animals don't really care what we define as country. Liechtenstein counts as country Hawaii does not, it's just a made up definition at the end of the day.
@@supercharger5727 Considering Hawaii was a country until the US forcibly indentured it, I think it's fair.
@@supercharger5727 ruclips.net/video/k-_kW0G5iSY/видео.html
In my local area in Canada, we no longer have any ladybugs appearing anywhere in the town. When locals attempt to order ladybugs online to release them, they just die off around here. They can't be found either within the next 3 towns as well, which is causing increasing infestations of aphids, thrips and various other bugs to swarm up in gardens & farm lands. No more Monarch butterflies to be seen either, the Oregon Forest Snail which was on the local endangered list is dwindling away so quickly. The fox population up in the mountains went down from an estimated 36 to 8 due to poaching & deforestation.
I have made attempts to bring up these kinds of topics to local journalists, but they say they don't want to tarnish their hard earned reputation making articles about nature.
I live in Oregon the snail is pretty common here and I see them regularly in my backyard, same with millions of monarch butterflies that swamp the Beaverton area "'city next to Portland."
The vast majority of animals and plants you think are native to Canada simply aren't, everything you see hasn't existed for more than 10,000 years. The last time Canada had any true native animals was over 2.1 millions years ago. Everything in Canada either came from Alaska or the United States. If you ever look at historical ranges of any animal you see the largest populations originate from the US, Alaska and Siberia and are sparsely populated along the edges of the Canadian US borders.
Sense Canada has close ties with Britain you guys have similar wildlife protection laws same with Britain's other colonies, Australia and New Zealand, one of them refers to invasive species trading. Australia taps out anything that's been there since 15,000 is native with some states concluding that the dingo is an invasive introduced species for example. I think this would be an interesting news piece.
@@quintontarlton you have no idea what you’re talking about.
@@baneofbanes you sure about that bud? If I'm wrong explain because geologist nor would a paleonologist disagree. Have you ever visited Canada? To research the biology or prehistoric landscape prior to the younger Dryes period?
@@quintontarlton yes you are wrong. And yes actual geologists, paleontologists, and most of all biologists would disagree with you. Was the glaciers receded new environments were opened up and they were colonized naturally by wildlife from the lower regions of North America. Aka they’re native to Canada. Same process happened in Alaska.
You have no idea how this stuff works and it’s obvious.
@@baneofbanes I have documented over 15,000 chordates with 1000s hrs of writing that have existed as far back as 72 million years in North America, I'm not disagreeing that these animals will remain and should. I'm just pointed out my own research of things I observed while in Alberta Canada last summer. There are actually quite a few geologists that point this out about Canada and there's tons of videos on RUclips that specially talk about absence, let alone there were people who did modify the environment in Canada.
The Amazon is a great example of modifications it's almost 8-15 times larger than it should be due to human activities this is a fact no geologists, paleonologists or archaeologists deny.
When I speak about vagrants and diversification of species in a new region I'm talking directly about what point do we claim something is invasive or native. The short answer is 'no'. A longer answer is as follows: Species naturally change their ranges over time, usually just by small amounts - invading areas contiguous with where they lived before - but sometimes by long-distance dispersal even across ocean gaps. Monkeys reached South America from Africa, presumably by rafting on trees washed out to sea, for example. Over 30 million years "please check that number!" they have radiated into many new species, adapted to their new environment, and their competitors (sloths, marsupials etc.) and predators. Clearly they are now native, and so will the descendants of grey squirrels in Europe be after 30 million years. So 'yes', at some point between 0 and 30 million years. Where you draw the line is pretty arbitrary. Is the dingo native in Australia after 4000 [again check!) year? No, but it is on its way: genetically and behaviorally distinct from the dogs that came with people, but still the same species.
Canada is considered a non biodiverse region from 2.1 million years when it was covered and even now when it's not. There's many pictures on Google showing its diversity. So the only thing Canada unquestionably has unique are narwhals which isn't very impressive. Not only that Canada hasn't had time to create subspecies which takes less time than for animals to speciate.
Mauritius is a country which has no native land mammals except for a species of flying fox/fruit bat. It also has no venomous snakes, but until 1975, had two endemic snake species of the family Bolyeriidae, though now only one remains. There are no snakes on the main island any more, with the only species left (keel-scaled splitjaw, Casarea dussumieri) relegated to a few surrounding islands.
Insects are a major litmus test. Here in California insect biodiversity has been impacted severely. Nocturnal Insects are conspicuously absent from lights and cars/trucks don't have dead insect splatter anymore. The only Insects now are non native pest species.
Here in Mississippi I remember as a kid huge swarms of insects hovering around street lights and porch lights on summer nights. Also you couldn’t drive too far at night before your windshield was covered in dead insects. Nowadays in most areas this is no more. 😢
@@palmettoms9886I live on the coast and we didn't have mosquitoes this summer..
I swear my mom and I were just discussing this very topic a couple of days ago. Here in central Texas, "lighting bugs" were a common part of the environment back in the 80s and 90s. I haven't seen one in more than 20 years now.
Overuse of insecticides? Drying of swamps? What are the major causes?
Say that to my poor car that I always have to wash 😅
What about japan and its wolves that supposedly went extinct as the last one was shot on january 23 1905 in the nara prefecture.
yes that's a good point and there are quite a few mammals that have gone extinct in Japan in recent history. I think the bears have taken over the wolves role
@@TsukiCove There are some campaigns to bring some of those species back to Japan by introducing close subspecies/relatives. Like the wolf, otter and sea lion
Rats, cats, weasel, Oh My! In all seriousness this sad when considering all the beautiful species we have lost and yet we run headlong oblivious to the consequences of our actions. It's just more, more, more.
1 day all the animals keeping our ecosystems wil be gone and that's left to eat will be other people.
Dont eat too much salt
@@youtubestudiosucks978I'm sorry, what does salt have to do with this?
@@Sienisota for when all that's left to eat are other humans. I dont want to get diabeetus from eating him
@@youtubestudiosucks978 😅
Wildlife is very precious, so never take it for granted, not even common songbirds.
I heard years ago that Europeans had eaten the smaller species of their birds. When I think back to stories of boys raiding birds’ nests, I feel very sad. They didn’t understand what they were doing.
I had the opportunity to travel extensively through China in the 1990s. I was shocked at how little wildlife there was in that whole country, everything has been eaten. We're going up the side of a mountain in a gondola in a very remote region near the Thailand border. And our tour guide said if you look real carefully, and we're very lucky you might see a squirrel. How sad
Lies.
@@freethinker284 Truth. It hurts huh?
@@malcontender6319 It's bullshit.
Gluttonous consumers with no regard for anything outside their own comfort, The CCP has poisoned the noble Chinese people's culture. Hopefully the whole rotten thing falls apart and the Chinese can enjoy their beautiful country without the vultures in charge preying on the struggles of their daily lives.
THEY EAT EVERYTHING, ONLY WILDLIFE IS ONLY FOUND IN NON-CHINESE LAND, WHICH THEY STOLE FROM MINORITY.
Addendum: Irelands ecosystem is FAR from healthy, it ranks even lower than the UK in terms of biodiversity. Making it one of the unhealthiest ecosystems in the entire world.
That's what I thought too. Minimal biodiversity in Ireland.
What tiny crumbs of native habitat remain in Britain and Ireland are absolutely gorgeous, but native ecosystems make up like FIVE percent of Ireland’s land area. The U.K. is better, but not much. Very sad
Scotland is one area that needs rewilding from what I've seen this past year or so in videos. Apparently the barren hillsides are not natural but the result of grazers running amok and eating everything down to the ground so no new trees can grow. They actually ban fences so you can't protect plants on your land.
Ask Mao why is it hard to find birds in China
Ireland also has no moles. That's the one people don't realise.
Interesting.
I think the polluted air and waterways greatly contributes to the lack of birds in China. And in rural areas they're being eaten.
Antarctica is missing pretty much everything
They could acclimate white bears or muskoxes there, why not ?
Antarctica used to have sloths, marsupials and terror birds in the way distant past, but it got too cold and all the plants died. Now, all the animals that live in Antarctica depend on the sea in some way, like the penguins and seals.
@@lioneldemun6033There's no plants and introducing invaise species to other continejts is how we get things like New Zealand and Hawaii.
@@Alatreon2435 New Zealand and Hawaii are beautiful I don't get your meaning
@@lioneldemun6033 They are beautiful but their ecosystems are in shambles because they introduced invasive species.
Another great video that could become a series! Love all the work you put out for us! You're gettin so close to 100k as well you deserve it all!
The kiwi bird are so cute as well as the only species of ground parrot. Too bad about the domestic cats taking advantage of both birds' lack of defences to predators...that is why its importent to keep your cats indoors no matter where you live.
i thought the kakapo was a ground parrot too no?
I always tell people how China has no birds and they never believe me
It's not true that China has no birds! As many videos and TV programmes will testify. And indeed many field guides to the birds of China. Don't believe everything you read or see on social media.
That's a lie.
No one believes you because it's a lie.
Lol
I'm glad apparently you are the only insane one here
Thank you for another excellent video! Today I know more about snakes in the U.K. than I ever did. Never would have thought there could be adders in Scotland! Amazing!
Thank you i appreciate the support. Yeah it's strange to think about, i live in south west England and we mostly have grass snakes and adders. The smooth snakes are only found in a few places in the south but they're normally found in the same place as sand lizards which are the UK's coolest lizard in my opinion.
You guys had the "Black Adder"!!!
@@TsukiCove china has a billion people, they eat everything is why there is no birds. if your dog fido is missing, probably end up at the local restaurant in shanghai when its bring a dog eat for free night.
@giovanni-ed7zq Sounds like you are getting worked up again. Calm down grandpa
@@DG-iw3yw no tigers also because they like tiger penis
Guam is another place that should have made your list. It has no birds. Again, man and introduced animals are to blame. World War II had a devastating effect on what birds remained on the island. By 1946, they were all gone. 😔😔😔
The absence of birds in Guam is due not directly to WWII, but to the highly invasive brown tree snake, which probably came to Guam from Indonesia as a stowaway on military cargo ships and planes. They have virtually single-handedly (if they had hands) eaten the entire bird population of Guam. It's greatly feared that, despite tight inspection measures of ships and aircraft now in place, the brown tree snake could spread to other Pacific island areas like Hawaii with similarly disastrous consequences.
@@JohnDrummondPhotosnake on a plane?
@@JohnDrummondPhoto The gigantic US military presence cannot be helping. The US military is a rampant polluter.
New Zealand birds starting taking Ls ever since the Maori landed there. The Moa and Haast's Eagle were the first to go.
Chinese seem to have no regards for the suffering of animals. My wife is Chinese (she is very kind to animals) so this is not a racial statement.
Evil government believes in that useless ‘traditional medicine’ that just is a lie. They eat STARFISH dried and WHOLE bats.
It's an unfortunate truth. Chinese culture, in general, is very cold and unempathetic, especially to those considered "weak" or "less-than".
Any animal living in China: *Exists*
China: Lunchtime
Not lunchtime pest control is what he said
Irelands eco system is all but healthy lol
This might sounds radical, but I sometimes whish I could temporary remove all people in certain areas to let nature restore itself. (Especially in China)
It isn't radical at all. They piss me off. China is an embodiment of pure greed and corruption.
Why not in all areas?
@@teslaphilipson2406 because he's not planning on actually bringing them back and doesnt want to target his own people
@@youtubestudiosucks978 the funny thing is, this whole video is about how humans have destroyed these ecosystems
@@youtubestudiosucks978 It may not be as as crass as you suggest (hopefully). He is probably just an animal lover who wants animals to return to areas where they are gone. Sounds like you have never met the fellow in life, perhaps there is more to him than one might suspect? Without the dehumanizing veil of the internet, who can say? Besides in the commenters comment, it says “certain” areas. Who can say how many other areas of the world he meant? Lastly, he said “temporarily” which suggests nothing of something as drastic as “Hitlers Final Solution” or even of the Klan’s silent eugenics project. (I only mention those as examples of racism.)
It’s (hopefully) just wishful thinking from the perspective of animals lost.
Any government-funded animal eradication measures are just disgusting, no matter where it happens or what animal it is. Millions of lives snuffed out just so a minor inconvenience is completely removed, only to make way for disaster. Will humans never learn?
Long Island, New York in the US is a suburb of New York City that has no native lizards that I'm aware of. However, a population of Italian wall lizards that escaped from a pet shop over 50 years ago have established a colony that is spreading across Long Island and has even reached the Bronx and Connecticut. It's believed they spread by following railroad tracks. I've seen wall lizards in the NY Botanical Garden in the Bronx, as well as in my sister's yard in Elmont, Long Island close to the location of the original lizard release.
Excellent documentary. Most people don't understand different cultures without having empathy. Very nice interviews.
Most non-western cultures do not practice empathy.
It's a useless endeavor to empathize with psychopath cultures.
Australia's weird in that it's a large nation with massive sprawling plains but no native large land predators or large four legged grazer. Kangaroos have taken the ecological place of deer or bovinae, with few natural predators except sometimes dingo though to a very limited degree.
Thylacine was a thing ... until Europe happened to Australia.
@@RB-fp8hn Tasmania isn't a plains environment like the mainland.
They had large land predators but when the climate changed thousands of years ago, they died off.
Dingos arent native mate
@@NovaGirl8 Not talking about the last glacial maximum. Talking about modern biology.
I just returned from holidaying in the Philippines and couldn't believe that with so many beaches they don't have any seagulls. There were a few pigeons scavenging the beaches though.
That's because of the natural biogeographical distribution of gulls. Similarly there are large areas of North America which have no native species of earthworms.
If we got seagulls, we'd get rid of them. I've seen how evil they are.
@@FYCH45 native earthworms were largely eliminated by the last Ice Age. The North American ice sheet scraped all the topsoil off virtually all of Canada and much of the northern US, eliminating native earthworms from those areas. The earthworms returning to those parts of North America now are actually invasive species from Europe that are highly disruptive and destructive to the native forest ecosystem.
@@JohnDrummondPhoto That's true. It shows that the biogeographical distribution of animals, plants, fungi etc. are of course determined by events such as climate change. It also poses a lot of questions. Since earthworms play a vital role in the ecosystems of most parts of the world, how did the North American forest ecosystem get along without them? Was a very slow recolonization of that ecosystem by earthworms from further south in the Americas already happening before the introduction of the European earthworms? What effect would that have had on the ecosystem?
@@FYCH45 the short answer is that the northern forests, when they returned, adapted over thousands of years to survive with a thick layer of decaying vegetation on the ground. The invasive earthworms recirculate that decaying matter into the soil faster than the native flora can handle it. As a result, many native plants are suffering, which affects insects, both of which affect animal life and overall biodiversity. The worms were introduced by Europeans over just the last few hundred years, largely intentionally for farmers. They then spread into the woods.
If we left it up to China, there wouldn't be an animal left on Earth. It seems every creature, other than humans, are endangered. The Chinese alligator is practically extinct. So is the panda, although there are many in zoos around the world. The white rhino in Africa is being poached in the name of Chinese medicine. Even the elephant is in danger because of them.
We left it to European and many animals went to extinct. All in the name of sport hunting and scapegoat.
Bunch of savages
Most of their native turtle and tortoise species are critically endangered aswell. Also their seas have no fish left in them due to pollution and over fishing so they decided to trespass and sent boats to the coasts of South America and are fishing out their side of the ocean now too.
China disgusts me on every level.
I've left comments on videos talking about how screwed up China is, and I've gotten replies from people from China saying,
"Yeah, that's why I moved away from it."
When I lived in China there were birds. I used to listen to them sing outside my window all the time and saw them flying around. West Lake even has ducks. I have some pictures of them. Their songs kind of stand out to me, because they sound different than the birds here where I live in the United States.
They didn't eat you? I thought that the Chinese ate anything that moved.
@horseygurl143 not so much anymore, but they eat a lot more things than we do. Their Walmarts are a little strange, because the seafood section has aquariums lol I used to call it the pet aisle lol Like all the fish and stuff were still alive... and they ate a lot of parts that we wouldn't... like there was this fast food restaurant that had fried chicken cartilage. it looked like popcorn chicken lol they had lots of seafood and tofu too. They mostly eat pork though. If it didn't say specifically chicken or beef on the menu, then it was pork. They have lots of really good food though. If there is something I miss, I watch Chinese cooking videos on RUclips to find out how to make it 😅
Where was this? How long ago? It’s a large country so some areas must have been missed.
@@horseygurl143lmao alright horsey gurl.
@@horseygurl143 It's funny how this kind of backhanded racism doesn't get any pause
The island nation of Malta has a bloated poacher population, and that has impacted the bird population. You can still see sparrows and pigeons, but anything else is shot and usually migratory. When a flamingo is spotted in the country, it usually has less than 2 hours, before it gets shot.
You could do a whole episode on Australia not only have we bought invasive animals here but we have also killed off a lot of them in one way or another
Australia is the perfect example of just how destructive humans can be. The fossil record shows that as soon as humans appeared, virtually all the large animals died off, most likely killed off by humans. And these were stone age humans, imagine how much more destructive we are now. In a way the country is lucky that humans introduced wild dogs that became dingos since they filled an important gap left by the extinct native creatures, otherwise it could have been even worse.
Yeah too sad so many animals have gone extinct here from us
Love your video and I am an animal keeper and lover and learned from you
Thanks i really appreciate the support and i'll keep the vids coming :)
Not to be picky, but...Hawaii isn't a country. Love your videos. Keep up the good work.
First comment also your video editing skills are insane
they really aren't haha its very basic stuff but thank you
@@TsukiCove I mean better than mine ngl
@@TsukiCove can you do 5 strongest animals and 2 runner ups
the wolf is missing in ireland
New Zealand has a lot of birds i live up in the bush and they are literally everywhere
The brown snake really destroyed Guam birds, these snake are insane , one kept trying to get at my daughter though the window tapping on glass nonstop until we cut off its head. There were still a few birds when we lived there , they say all birds are gone now. Is that true, even the pop jays gone?
Literally almost every single bird you see on Guam now are invasive species.
Black Drongo, Common Pigeon, Jungle Fowl, Eurasian Tree Sparrow and more.
Virtually all the native bird species on guam has become extirpated or completely extinct.
My local ecosystem has no dinosaurs
Wait what, theyre going extinct?😢
Alberta province in Canada doesn’t have any rats and there are no mosquitoes in Iceland
Thailand was my home for 13 years and i rarely saw exotic birds.
For anybody interested ireland used to be home to bears wolves and elk but there now gone extinct google the Irish elk gigantic
Paleontologically speaking, it seems dinosaur species started to evolve into modern birds in China, around 125 MYA. Sad irony.
And you believe the video claim? Why not get a plane ticket to fly over to have look.
I would like to point out one. There are no native boas in Florida. It's really odd because in the US there are the rubber boas along the Pacific coast and rosy boas in the southwest deserts. And near Florida itself you have cuban boas and Bimini boas, each of which exist naturally within 90 miles of Florida. And yet none have made it here and I can't find a good explanation as to why.
they might have arrived there in multiple waves through hurricanes, storms etc but due to environmental pressures couldn't get a foothold (too few in numbers, competition was too harsh in those particular timeframes etc) evolution takes many steps, most are failed ones we don't get to see
China: No birds
Chinese: ...
Europeans: where are they?
Chinese: ... we hungy..
Europe has wiped out species which lived there long ago such as lions. The Roman empire had a role in this.
Question, where do u usually get your information for animals :)
@@Neoprototype Wikipedia sucks
@@Neoprototype it’s biased, real animal experts never use it
CIA/
He gets it from Laowhy and Serpentza LOL
1:45 the Aesculapian Snake is an established invasive uk snake so its 4. Nitpick i know but worth mentioning
I actually had no idea about this and i'm surprised, thanks for letting me know :)
actually there is one group of animals that is missing almost everywhere: megafauna, or animals at weights if a metric ton and more.
elephants, rhinos, giant landsloths; they used to be almost everywhere. however, they all disappeared with the end of the ice age and the start of the anthropozene.
whether it was climate change that ended them (all genuine megafauna can be found around the equator, an area that already was warmer than average during the ice age) or human predation (the fossile record indicates a sharp decline of megafauna acroos the globe at the same time modern humans arrived at that part of the planet), or a combination of both is still up for debate. but the age of truly titanic animals came to an end all the same, and even big-but-nit-quite megafauna animals like bovines have become rare outside of human captivity.
personally, i think humans ended the age of titans, as being big and strong was not an effective survival strategy against humans, who were smart enough to figure out ways around the massive size difference and had the cooperation to pull off successful hunts against big prey, much like lions and wolves do. it also has to be mentioned that modern humans used highly effective projectile weapons, and being larger made you an eadier target to those aswell.
Australia has no native ungulates, one to include in the follow up video
That's cause Australia split off from South America and Antarctica before ungulates evolved and has been mostly isolated since then. Macropods like Kangaroos evolved to fill a similar niche to fast ungulates like deer and antelope and extinct Wombat-like Diprotodontidae evolved to fill a similar niche to wild bovines and rhinos.
Thank god people can enjoy ducks sweetness and cuteness from all over the world.
Glad to see your channel grow!!! So much content every week =^) Love serpentzA and Laowhy86, and such a shame that the people of China have to suffer the consequences of their past =^( but they seem to be doing nothing tangible to help their ecology. If anything, they're ramping up their destruction and taking it overseas (belt & road initiative).
Thanks i appreciate the support :) I couldn't agree more and I've learnt so much about China through their channels as well
@TsukiCove
So you get your wildlife info from Laowhy and Serpentza ?
Lol
I guess you China haters have China living in your head rent free. 👍
Belt and Road has lifted people out of poverty. A nightmare for the typical white westerner.
You had your chance. But you choose to export bombs and chemicals. Don't be jealous now.
Free roaming cats are some of Hawaii's *worst* invasive, non-native ecological pests.
Add. No snakes 🐍 in New Zealand 🇳🇿, Ireland🇮🇪 or Greenland
I figured China had a more general disregard for which animals they feed on, given the infamous common knowledge of eating dogs and such where most other people around the world don't.
But I never realized it was to this extreme, it a shame really that China has a very poor biodiversity nowadays if this true. Kind of hard to believe, but it is a very much human thing to destroy.
Edit: I do apologize to anyone who got offended by my frankly ignorant judgement on Chinese people. I'm reminded that any given individual have their own opinion on the matter, and that there's people on said county who are against the current situation.
Sigh… chinese culture
Chinese explaining why they need to make random animal extinct (they need it for their "medicine")
All countries eat creatures that another does not - Horses, Rabbits, Guinea pigs, Ostrich, Crocodile, Deer, Squirrel, Frogs, Camel, Bush meats, Whales, Cows, Pigs etc...
Some creatures are killed for trophy, hobby hunting , pelts, feathers etc..
Closest we're ever be to not being Hypocrites is to be Vegan or at least Vetagetarian eh..
@hyrode Blame their corrupt government for not caring.
I hope there are actual people in China that care about nature (and not just marketable pandas!), despite their government. I mean, with over a billion people, it would be weird otherwise.
I miss dinosaurs 😢
just a note about New Zealand. It is not just the arrival of the Europeans that heavily effected the ecosystem. The arrival of the Maori were equally devastating. And they also introduced land mammals that had a big impact on the ecosystem, like the Polynesian Rat, and dogs.
As an irish man, I can tell you there is a few local snakes in town pub now ;)
There is not ONE single animal rights law in China, not one - the Chinese Communist Manifesto actually has it enshrined that Nature is a resource to be used in every way possible if it is for the advancement and betterment of Humans.
Considering that most Chinese consider anything that hops, skips, jumps, runs, slithers, slides, glides, flies, swims, burrows, climbs, soars, hovers, creeps, crawls and wiggles as a resource it's no wonder there are no birds in China.
The Chinese with their Belt and Road expansion, into every corner of the globe, are the single biggest threat to global biodiversity on the planet; if it moves, they see it as food.
And I truly don't care if this is a xenophobic or anti-Sino comment, it's the truth.
Belt and road lifted many people out of poverty.
What have you offer up?
What about your government?
Oh right. Let me guess. You gave them bombs and bullets.
Lol
Regarding how China's treats its environment and wildlife, this is one of the many reasons why I am trying to get in the habit of not buying anything that comes out from there. That bag of disposable forks may have helped put enough smog in the atmosphere to smother Hedorah for all we know.
I live in Southern Arizona. We miss jaguars and ocelots that used to live here. Jaguars are missing totally on the US where they used to be common from Southern Texas to Southern California.
They lived all the way from California to Florida. Now there’s only several hundred left
Egypt, italy, and indonesia outside of protected areas, are also missing birds. The italian country side is mostly silent if what i have read is correct. We are missing insects in my area. They are very rare except for mosquitos and ants and grasshoppers
This is fairly interesting but I wonder why Australia even as an island has always had native species of every niche although I would say, the animal that you would see the least in Australia is native amphibians, Cane Toads are a lot more common in Australia and are the biggest problem invasive species and I've only really seen Aussie frogs once or twice in my 30 years living in Australia but we do have a significant amount of native amphibians despite all this, all of them are frogs or toads, we have zero salamanders.
Also Australia is interesting because all of our specific native species developed differently to most other countries and landmasses as the majority of our mammals are Marsupials and only one marsupial species is found outside of Australia and surprisingly enough Papua New Guinea.
No. In the Americas we have the opossum, a native marsupial.
I guess it just hung out watching its competition die out. Who knows?
We have heaps of frogs in Australia. Well at least we did until cane toads…
South America was dominated by marsupials until the Panama land bridge allowed placentals in from North America iirc. I think they still have some different species down there?
I don’t think that Australia had many native mammals- just the native dog which was probably brought here a few thousand years ago.
@@susanc4622 marsupials are mammals too…
I'm currently living and Mainland China and the claim "there are no/very few birds in China" definitely cannot be true at all. When I go hiking in the forest, I hear a lot of birds singing, in my neighborhood, bird voices often wake me up at 4 am when I let the window open over night. Also, I fondly remember when I was in Beijing there were giant swarms of crow birds gathering and flying around every evening.
Of course, this is a large country, probably there are some places with fewer birds, but my day-to-day experience doesn't suggest there are only a few birds here.
I'm currently in China too (Chongqing city) but I've been to quite a few cities in China and have no idea what the video is talking about. A reason I bought earplugs was that so the birds wouldn't wake me up at 6am, and the traffic wouldn't wake me up at 8am as most windows in Chinese apartments are not properly insulated from sound.
The UK has like 0 apex predators or large megafauna when we used to historically have them. Such as bears, wolves, lynxes etc.
You don't need apex predators when you have humans, we kill the shit out of everything on every level.
I would like to see someone do a video on the mass extinction event caused by Polynesian expansion. Hawaii, the Marquesas, Tahiti, Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and New Zealand all lost thousands of species including the largest bird, largest Palm tree and hundreds of flightless bird species.
This video is a shame. Deliberatly lie that New Zealand has no native mamalls, and ,worse of all, China has no native birds is outrageous. This video is a fraud. Shame on you sir
Can you do 5 strongest animals
Yeah can you do Top 5 Strongest and then 2 runner ups?
That would be hard tbh, bite force wise we know it’s the saltwater croc but it’s not like you can get a animal to start benching😂😂
@@Celticsnation412 You could do how much they can lift/push/bite down on based on their size but I guess it might be only composed of ants and dung beetles then.
@@a4blackjaguar965 yes
Alberta exterminated all their rats n mice. Aldo there's only 1 insect that I know of that can survive in Antarctica
I dont understand any society who will torture and eat anything with legs but the kitchen table . 😢
If you eat meat of any kind. You're a hypocrite.
I seen a lot of callousness when it comes to birds. I have seen some people in my country cheer when a cat kills a bird. Equating the birds to rats. Or people thinking it's cute their pet cat brought them a dead bird as a "present". I made sure to do my best to keep my pets away from nests but it seems pointless as there are plenty of stray cats and free roaming cats here. I have seen only 3 nests in the past year, and I never saw the chicks fledge. Instead I am greeted with destroyed nests and the scent of cat piss on the car.
And to those defending the cats. I know it's cats because there are laws against freeroaming dogs in my area. So people keep their dogs in cages (sometimes too small for them in my opinion) or in their yards. I am in the middle of a city which means there are no predators like snakes or lizard. The only reptile I have ever seen here is a common house gecko.
I went from liking cats to not liking them as much. I know it's their instinct but I would have at least prefer owners to keep their cats from killing local wildlife and not defend this freeroaming.
Pigeons are rats on wings.
As I'm reading this, you are saying that you keep your cats away from bird nests. Have you considered keeping them indoors?
Trapping and neutering feral cats??
There's more you can do than hope and pray.
BTW, I believe geckos are an invasive species.
There are definitely birds in China. There are even wild bird rescue centers there.
Fantastic interesting. 🏆🏆🏆
Unfortunately...
More documentaries please 🙏🙏🙏
Lived in China for over a decade, very hard pressed to find an abundance of wildlife let alone birds on a day to day basis. HK has alot of pigeons.
I think many people though China had no birds because they go to the highly urbanize cities. Due to rapid urbanization and industrialization, a lot of natural habitat had been lost, so bird population had been decline greatly, but said China had no birds is ridiculous. Many of my birder friends had been going to China to photograph wild bird.
dude.. this dude refers to serpentza and laowhy video.. and you believed him?
There are huge numbers of sparrows in China these days. In the main cities. In Beijing. Eradication of sparrows was a real thing but it failed miserably.
There are sparrows. Not really huge numbers, unless things have really improved since I was last there. (About 5 years)
No insects in Antarctica...
Lynx, wolves and brown bears in the UK.
Has anyone considered the amount of poverty in some parts of China? I don't mean the official government records, but what humanity charities have reported, specifically in rural areas. Do people honestly think they would always respect nature and refuse to hunt wild animals if their family was starving?
I'm not saying China is right in this. The government needs to create stronger environmental protection laws and it needs to enforce them. I think the blaming of individual Chinese people, however, is a little icky. There is a difference between a government, a culture, and its people.
For instance, American CULTURE is racist, but when I speak on the topic I do my best not to speak about Americans as if each individual person is being racist, but place the blame on the society they grew up in, and which has impacted the way they think and act EVEN IF they would actively think of themselves as being non-rascist and would never purposefully support racist legislation. Only somehow, people end up doing just that. It propagates through the culture. And regardless of how much better some people think they are - oh, they could never be manipulated by media like those other poor fools - the truth is that EVERYONE is a product of the society in which they live. Culture is a part of who you are, it's unavoidable.
So perhaps a better way to speak about the lack of birds in China, rather than blaming "those chinese people who will eat ANYTHING - everyone knows they eat dogs and have no respect for nature" maybe we should first do some introspection:
A. Is it truely that sttange to eat a domesticated wolf? More strange than eating a domesticated bird? A domesticated hog?
B. What is the difference between eating a pigeon and eating a chicken? In a way, with the amount of green house emissions created by factory farming, is eating a higjly process mass factory chicken actually, morally superior to eating a wild bird?
Then we need to question the situations, economy, and hostorical events that have created this culture. Is it possible to work within that cultural framework rather than shaming and other people? Does acting as if your avaerage chinese citizen is somehow "disgusting" or "wierd" likely to make an positive change, or is it more likely to other an entire country, creating and spreading sterotypes that will only result in bigotry against people of chinese ancestory, even those living outside of China.
Then we can ask where the blame should realky lie, and I think the clear answer there is with the government. With those in power and their lack of protection for wildlife. They havent tried to create a more environmental friendly cultural, and they have far, far more power than one small family shop trying to make a living that, sure, maybe sells cooked birds. There is only so much damage that one family alone can do, it is when it is taken as part of a larger sum, ine created by the government, that it becomes such a problem.
I've met Chinese environmental activitist. Their outlook and methods are not the same as the ones we utalize in the west, but that is because they are working within their own cultural. Its a lesson feminist had to learn when they went to India. They wanted to enforce their version of western feminism onto a wholely different culture when the far, far more effective solution turned out to be to listen to actual women from India, hear what they are looking for and how they felt was the best way to achieve it. Im notsaying sexism is solved in India, but its not solved in America either. Im saying that people who understand the culture theyre working within have more luck changing that cultural than outsiders just declaring, "youre wrong, primitive, and disgusting".
This is not an excuse, especially when it's the rich that of much of this killing.
@@chickensalad3535 I suppose not.... I'm just sappy that way, I guess.
@@Gildedmuse I understand having compassion and empathy, but it seems like you only extend those feelings to humans and not the millions of animals being slaughtered en masse. Where is their compassion and empathy?
@@chickensalad3535 I'm sorry it came off that way. I do respect all life. I'm unsure what I said that made you think I didn't and I certainly didn't mean to give that impression.
I was recently in Beijing, and was literally having trouble not stepping on excess abundance of sparrows. This seems like more like propaganda in the later 1990s and early 2000s........
ADVChina literally got their visas revoked a few years ago and are criticizing China now out of spite. The funny thing is, the two dudes 5-6 years ago were ridiculing people who do exactly that, and what do you know, turns out that pays more.
And China is such an easy target, any evidence presented to disprove of the claim can be easily dismissed by "ah that's just government propaganda". You can't win an argument like this, and it's pointless to try.
I really love this channel!
Good job counting adv, top lad. Great vid too obviously
2;27 I would also think that island ecosystems can be badly damaged by a couple of years of unseasonal weather. Being an island it would be difficult to migrate to a more hospitable area. And if the original location recovered, how would you return to repopulate the place?
Edit: Ireland's situation would imply that they broke away *before* the weather warmed up enough for the snakes to migrate into it.
in the uk there is no woodland or forest anymore, also a big reason why
Thank you for your cover on this subject.
We have snakes in Hawaii, used to play with them as a kid. But they're as tiny as worms. Research the Island Blind Snake
if you have an outdoor cat in new Zealand you should have your cat re-homed and be banned from owning any pets if you don't house train them
There are no birds in Bae-Sing-Sae
I can't be sure but I wanna say before colonization there were no cats in Australia?
You're recommending videos by SerpentZA ? The man who fled China after being caught trying to take 'illegal things' through the airport, and who now spends his time spewing hate.
I was in 5 countries in south east asia 3 we drove and we all noticed the lack of birds specially in wild areas on on the end I saw why. They eat them! BTW Hawaii didn't have ANYTHING.
Aaaaaa I didn't expect you to be a adorable lil doggy!!! 😍😍😍
I just realized why it's called "Ireland" because I couldn't tell the difference between when you said island and Ireland loll
Australia has no apex predator since the extinction of the Tasmanian tiger. Before that, the mainland's marsupial lion disappeared around when the Aboriginal people arrived.
I’m still mad that the Great Lakes don’t have cooler animals.