Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Birds Surviving on Junk Food Stop Migrating

          A new study of Spain and Portugal's white storks shows that they are skipping their annual journey to Africa during winter. Before the 1980's there were no storks that lived in Europe year round and now almost 80% stay. Also there have been increased numbers of white storks in this region. This large amount of birds that do not migrate are all found in or around landfills. These landfills create for a reliable year round supply of food. Aldina Franco and her team conducted a study in which they tracked 48 white storks. Her results showed that over the years these storks were living permanently in landfill nests and guarding their desirable area of landfill. Franco stated that, “You see some individuals go from the nest to the landfill site and then just go back to the nest.” Also her studies showed that some storks traveled up to 30 miles to come to the landfill for a "feast" on the junk food that is there.
         This relates to many aspects of our class. One being that the specific niche or position in the environment that the white storks previously held is changed. They are changing the ecosystem in which they are staying in as well as the one in which they no longer go to. Without these storks in the area of Africa they used to migrate to the trophic levels may be altered. The predators that usually eat them will have less of a food source and there also could be over populations of the organisms these white storks eat.
        I was surprised when I read this article because I did not consider the fact that a large portion of a species would completely change their habits in order to be near junk food. This makes me wonder about the health of both the birds that eat the junk as well as the predators that eat these birds. If this "junk" is passed through the food chain less energy is available to those species. This also makes me think of how many organisms have altered their living and diet because of where and what we leave out for nature to consume.
Picture of a white stork caught in plastic
European White Stork Stuck In Plastic Bag In Spain

Article Credit : http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/03/060315-storks-food-animals-science-urban-food/
Photo Credit: JOHN CANCALOSI, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
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2 comments:

  1. UnknownApril 11, 2016 at 6:53 PM

    I was very surprised to read about the effects that landfills have on animals like the white stork. It is awful to see that they are suffering like they are and the picture of the stork stuck in the bag is so sad. I hope that this issue can be solved and these birds can resume their normal behaviors soon.

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  2. Gordon MacCammonApril 25, 2016 at 8:34 PM

    It may be a good idea to start conservation efforts to find a way to prevent the birds from eating this food. It not only destroys the birds from the inside but also massively detriments their migratory habits. This just destroys ecosystems if the species are year round staying in one area which could have unbelievable shock waves in ecosystems that involve these birds. They could also go extinct if they were to continue relying on the junk and became dependent, because if poison were to accidentally make it into the landfill, an entire population could be wiped out.

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