Cartridges in Bird Seed - let the Birds sort it out!

[Oyeboten]

Cleaning out my Car Trunk today, and, on the bottom was about five pounds of Bird Seed and a few hundred rounds of Ammunition.

Rather than trying to sort it all out by hand, I decided it would be more fun to just scoop it all out, and toss it on the Ground, and, to let the Birds eat all the Seeds, thus liberating the Cartridges for me to pick up and dust off later.

Among the mostly .380 and .38 ACP and a few odd or empty .38 Special, turns out I had about thirty nine rounds of some pretty old W.R.A. "38 AC" which looks like a 'Soft Nose'...how cool is that?


Anyway, did not get on to thinking of taking any images till all the Seeds were pretty well eaten, but, heres a few of toward the end.

[Chaffee]

Hope the people who complain about birds inadvertatly eating lead shotgun pellets don't see this. They'd have a field day.

Headline--"Man Feeds Pigeons Loaded Cartridges, gets 25 years"

[Chaffee]

Question: Why are you hiding ammo in birdseed? Or are you cleaning your brass?

[Oyeboten]

Hope the people who complain about birds inadvertatly eating lead shotgun pellets don't see this. They'd have a field day.

Headline--"Man Feeds Pigeons Loaded Cartridges, gets 25 years"

They are very discerning...Lol, and true!

I had not really cleaned out my Trunk in at least a year, so, spilled Bird Seed, spilled stuff from trips to the Range, Tools, all sorts of stuff all jumbled in there and so on, high time I got it all nice and tidy again!


Birds did their part splendidly!


No Shotgun Pellets in there...that could be bad...indeed...

[Oyeboten]

Last year, I'd have extemporaneous Cardboard Range Boxes with various things in them, Ammo, Targets and so on, then not really bring all of it back in...then later, I'd have to pile Carpentry Tools in there, and, those would crush the Cardboard Boxes of Range stuff, so after a while, had quite a few .380 and .38 ACP Cartridges rolling out and settling down to the bottom, where, the spilled Bird Seed also ended up...Lol...

The Birds knew I had spilled Bird Seed in the Trunk, and, if I left the Trunk Lid open, they'd go in there and be pecking at it...but usually I had a lot of Tools piled up on top of that.


Been feeding the little Harpies here since I moved in, in 1986...so I know most of them, and, they know me.

They know my Car, and will follow me home from many blocks away, thinking when I get home, maybe it will be Chow Time for them, and, of course, once a day, it is.

[swamprat]

I saw a show on Homing Pigeons on the NGC channel a few months back, I know they are a pest in some areas, but they are an amazing species. They mate for life and will mourn the passing of their mate.

[BearBio]

Sorry, as an invasive species in most of the world that spread bird and human disease, I view them as rats with feathers.

[Oyeboten]

Sorry, as an invasive species in most of the world that spread bird and human disease, I view them as rats with feathers.

While technically, Columbia liva is not considered to be a 'Native Species', they are not considered 'invasive', they have simply lived here for Centuries, brought over if not with the Mayflower, then, very soon after, and often there-after.

Untill only a few decades ago, 'squab' ( a pre-fledgling Pigeon ) was a very popular food which endless people in the US enjoyed, whether raising their own, or, ordering it in Restaurants.

Endless people across our Land kept or offered Habitat to Pigeons, in Cities and in rural areas, not only for people-food, but as a passionate Hobby or to enjoy seeing them fly and or be part of the ambiance.

Dovecotes of many designs, had been very popular as well as Lofts or other means of offering Habitat to Pigeons were immensely popular in the US from the begining of our Country...and, from these, many of the Wild Pigeons we see now, have descended.




Pigeons neither carry nor transmit disease to any degree worth mentioning, and, certainly do not do so to even 1/1,000,000th of the extent to which people do as far as 'carrying' anyhting a person could get, or to even a minute decimal fraction of the actual extent to which 'pet' dogs and cats do, and, that entire propaganda of accusing Pigeons of this, is merely a false ploy conjured up by 'Pest Control' companies over the last few decades, to try and widen their markets at the expense of truth.


There is no 'disease' issue with Pigeons which could possibly register on any scale of sanity...certainly none compared to the diseases you can give to yourself anyway, all by yourself, without even needing anyone else to 'carry' it, and, certainly infinitely less than none, compared to the frequency of illness/disease or death which is occasioned from doctors and hospitals.

Prior heads of the CDC have candidaly admitted in retirement, that we have at least 800,000 iatrogenic ( accidental death by doctor screw up or doctor or hospital infecting a patient with a disease from sloppy practice, poor hygene, poor standards of practice, etc ) deaths a year in the US, and vastly more incidents of serious illness injury and damage, occuring to people drom 'doctors' and hospitals.

While occasionally the 'press' claims some incident of people being sick from Pigeons, if we examine the facts of the incident, we find that no such event has occurred, but what it has all been based on, are spin-offs from any condition from any provenance, in which Nitrates are piled upon a damp soil, and allowed to sit iondefinitely and to dessicate in Summer or in arid climes, where, Microbes and Bacteriaa which live in the Souls, find nourishment from the NItrates or other Organics, and can concentrate superficially then, and, if the superficial layers of fecal matter and urates and Soil are dessicated and agitated then to create dusts which become airborne, these Bacteria and Microbes can be aspirated, and, in some individuals, especially those who are immuno-compromised, there can be mild infection or illness, resulting.

This has nothing to do with Pigeons, other than, if a large number of Pigeons roost above a damp soil, so their poop is falling onto the same place for many years, the Nitrates in their Urates fertalize the Soil from the top, causing Microbes and Bacteria which live IN the Soils to arise closer to the Nitrate source, and, then, if this becomes entirely dried out and is macerated or somehow violently agitated so that is can make airborne Dusts, the Dusts can contain stages of the Micro-Organisms life cycles, which if breathed in, may cause illness.


None of these Micro-Organisms came from the Pigeons - rather, they came from the Soils.

Gardeners, Farmers, Archeologists/Paleontologists, Forensic excavators, anyone digging or disturbing Soils for any reason, face similar conditions, especially in contexts where proper Soil or Livestock management is not observed...and none of these conditions have anything to do with Pigeons...but have to do with Micro-Organisms which love in Soils, and which can become Airborne in conditions of disturbing 'dry' Soils.


This then was the basis of the claim so spun in deceit and exhageration made by 'pest control' companies or sometimes pronounced by 'the press', starting a few decades ago, about Pigeons 'carrying' or 'transmitting' disease.

It is a totally fake claim...and totally unreasonable.





While, ask any parent of a pre-school or grade-school child, how often THEY are sick from illness the child continuously brings home from school..?


"GUNS ARE BAD!!! ALL GUNS should be outloawed!!!"

Etc...

We hear such things from people who have no actual knowledge or informed experience with Firearms.

"Flying rats!" - is the equivelent, from those who have neither any actual knowledge or informed experience with Pigeons.


If you want to identify an 'invasive species' which actually DOES spread 'disease' - Historically and now, it has been and continues to be human beings.



No other Species of any kind is even a remotely close second..!


Lol...

And true...

[BearBio]

"Flying rats!" - is the equivelent, from those who have neither any actual knowledge or informed experience with Pigeons."

A few diseases PROVEN to be transmitted by or from (as in a disease reservoir):

Histoplasmosis
Cryptococcis
Psitticosis (caused by a strain of Chlamydia)=A friend's mom died of it. She was immuno-depressed by RA.
West Nile virus
Taxoplasmosis
H5N1 (Pigeons host the disease apparently without getting the disease)
Avian botulism
Avian anthrax
Western equine encephalitis (WEE)
Eastern equine encephalitis (EEE)
La Crosse encephalitis (LAC)
St Louis encephalitis (SLER)
Rhaboviruses RI-166 and RI-175
Quaranfil virus (Q disease)
Anaphylactic shock to Pigeon ticks
Relapsing fevers (Borrelia sp.)-transmitted from pigeons by ticks
It is thought that Lyme disease was transported from northern Europe, most likely Norway, by either pigeons or waterfowl. It was first described as "Tick Borne Avian Arthritis" almost 100 years before it was described in the US. Birds, pigeons especially, provide a reservoir for the disease (From my research paper for a graduate level course in microbiology.)

[Oyeboten]

And, actual, demonstratable incidence of human illness arising from these, be-cause of Pigeons, is...?


Close to "Zero".


Injury or death by aspirating a Pretzel, far out number any actual documented ilnness transmission from Pigeons to People.


The few incidents where such has occurred, would have been preventable with the merest of basic hygene, common sense, and basic practices of housekeeping-groundskeeping.


It really is extremely improbable or logistically difficult for a person to 'catch' any kind of illness whatever from a Pigeon.

Just how is you imagine them to do it?





Your 'list' is a minute fraction of what a comparable list would be, for any random sampling of people, as far as symptomatic or asymptomatic carriers of disease, and or of technically present and practically meaningless disease.



Average human mouth has large list of 'Diseases' which can be transmitted under favorable conditions.

Shall we indict all of humanity on that actually verifyable basis of them being thus, "Rats"?


Unhealthy Birds tend to perish quite soon, anyway...they have only a very small margain for survival of even a little sub par.

Your list applies to just about all avian Species, in addition to all Mammal Species, and most Reptile Species, anyway.



You can get some truely horrible things using the Salt or Pepper Shaker or touching a Doorknob or Coins or whatever, at any restaurant or where-ever, if you then touch an eye or nasal membrane, and if the last person to use it had done likewise right before using it, if they have any of hundreds of diseases present in the human 'resivior'.


Iatrogenic deaths ( said to be upward of 600,000 a year in the US, and so pronounced by some of the ex heads of the CDC ) and vastly more damage and legacy of damage from doctors and hospitals 'giving' diseases to patients, in addition to other entirely inaccountable screw ups.

Will you take a moment to savor that?

And compare it rationally, to the 'dangers' which actually exist, from Pigeons? Even if we somehow could obtain reliable verifyable statistics? which is for all practical purposes, about as close to "Zero" as as a minute fraction can be.


On and on...these hyped up indictments about Pigeons are noise and 'Kangaroo Court' quality of reasoning...there is not a demonstrable and actual issue there, with any of it.


A friends immunosuppressed mom gets Chlamydia, and dies...so you wish to blame Pigeons? But you do not say she got it from a Pigeon.


Please explain to me how she could possibly have contracted Chlamydia from a Pigeon, vis-a-vie the hundreds of usual ways the illness is popularly transmitted among people?

Why was she immuno suppressed? HIV? Aids? Something else? Of course that does not matter, who she got that from...sigh....and so on, with all this selected irrationality of 'reason'.


Or it does not even matter...

The woman is a "Rat" with all the same logic, and with vastly more justification FOR the 'logic', than Pigeons could ever be.

How many people did she infect with aids, chlamydia, hep c, or whatever else she spread around?

Seem fair now?

It might even be!

I dunno...

It is at least as fair if not more fair than the indictment you wish to impose.

Thus by your reconning, anyway...one is forced to conclude!


...sigh...

But, rather than indict or demonize or dehumanise anyone, let us just learn about these things actually, so we may be rational, realistic, and, have some practical Mental Models about how diseases operate, how they are transmitted, and, what conditions favor their transmission, and between whom.

That alone would solve all moral over-view, and other aspects of the larger matter, and it does not require or wish to insert pejorative hysteria and indictment upon any victim.

Far more civilized I think...