Nests lined with cigarette filters

Urban birds have to survive in hostile tree-less cities. Basic resources for nesting, food and shelter are being eradicated. The House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) now adds one of the most abundant substance in a city, namely cigarette butts into their nests. In the absence of plants for self-medication, city birds can pick from a wide array of 4.5 trillion cigarette filters to line the nest for their young with toxic garbage that might repell bugs from their dwelling.

Biology Letters: "Incorporation of cigarette butts into nests reduces nest ectoparasite load in urban birds: new ingredients for an old recipe?"

Images
- Franz Marc - The Dead Sparrow 1905
- Permeable cobblestones with cigarette litter, Berlin

Repurposed Zebras and Ostriches into Dog Poo

Walking through Berlin, one has to navigate the daily 2.4 tons of dog feces on the pavement. Anually 960 tons of excrement are dumped on the streets by pet owners oozing  Salmonella,  E. coli, Clostridium and Campylobacter and other zoonotic infectious diseases.

Much of this public waste product is actually repurposed Zebra  and Ostrich imported from its habitat in South Africa. The Born-Again Raw Feeders (BARF) obtain the meat at the local pet butcher and stuff it into their 'best friend'.

Pet lovers finance a monoculture of pets and discourage biodiversity/ biomes. In Africa the Zebra is held to be a grazing competitor by farmers and is culled. Unlike the horse it refused to be domesticated for human purposes.

The largest living species of bird native to Africa, the flightless Ostrich (Struthio camelus) is also converted to meat to feed the urban wolves and lapdogs.


Source article:
Zebra Strips for the Dog, Berliner Zeitung, 13.11.2012, 'English'

Images:
-Stubbs, George: Zebra
-Brehms Thierleben, Ostrich,
-Arabian Ostrich painting from The Book of Animals by al-Jahiz,
Syria, 1335. The Arabian Ostrich was wiped out by bow, arrows, dogs and finally by firearms and motor vehicles.

-Wilhelm Trübner, Mastiff with sausages »Ave Caesar morituri te salutant«, 1878

Updates:
Injured racehorses and thoroughbreds refusing to be cash cows killed for dog meat abc, 14.11.12

Japanese company stops selling dog food made from endangered whales treehugger 06.01.2016

Giraffe as Garbage Bin in a Zoo

Kliwon, the giraffe was held captive in his pen for 13 years. Zoo visitors tossed plastic wrappers into its pen. The garbage accumulated and clogged the ruminating animal's digestive system. The living garbage bin collapsed in his stall and died. The plant eater had "a plastic lump weighing around 20 kilograms and 60 centimetres in diameter in his stomach".

The home ranges of the tallest living terrestrial animal are usually open woodlands and savannas where it eats plant-based food. Humans have long exploited body parts of the animal and encroached on its habitat. Human settlements and their livestock are pushing the creature out of existence.

The Romans first imported and exhibited the animal as a spectacle as part of their 'Bread and Circuses' for the people. White big game hunters enjoyed the 'sport" of competitive killing in colonial Africa. Even today, recreational killing of the few giraffes left in hunting safaris is enjoyed by families.

Showcasing and selling wild animals in overpopulated zoos is profitable. In Kliwon's Surabaya Zoo "500 animals had died between 2010 and 2011." The zoo workers’ cooperative runs the stalls that cater to the customers food plus plastic wrapper needs.

A zoo visit is supposed to be 'taking the kids out and fun for the family'. A getting away from a lackluster everyday life and being animated by a menagerie of exotic animals that are held captive all at once at one's command. It offers "amusement without demanding exertion." Parents welcome outsourcing the service of interaction to other creatures. Distraction gives them a break.

Kids gape in wonder at the captive creatures. Junk food offering, rattling cages or banging on glass walls often enhances the 'performance' of the caged being that has no means of escaping. Safe and in control one can learn to initiate a one sided 'interaction'.
In this asymmetrical relationship the wildlife spectators learn the animal/human dichotomy and experience themselves as free "Peeping Toms". The powerlessness of the powerful mega fauna instills strength in the 'king of beasts', the Homo sapiens. One can stroll through the zoos or aquariums, theme parks, marine mammal parks, oceanarium, etc and eat some plastic wrapped fish/meat, engage in petting or just stare at the homeless curiosities.The hunger for sensations and distractions is good business. The peep industry in all of its forms profits. For many animals it is the last and only habitat on planet Earth allocated by humanity.
Soon there will be no remaining 'wildlife' untagged not on a 24/7 web cam and all shall only exist as part of our panopticon.

Images:
Head of a giraffe, Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon
Weigel, Hans: Giraffe, Wonder animal
Macke, August: Großer Zoologischer Garten, Triptychon 1913
Giraffe, bending for food. Brehm, Alfred/Brehms Thierleben

Updates
Conservationists warn of giraffe extinction, Human encroachment on giraffe habitat is seen as the biggest threat. 10.13

Zoo kills healthy giraffe in front of minors and feeds meat to lions, Guardian 02.2014

Disposable captives, Lori Gruen, 10.04.2014

There are about 80,000 giraffes left in the wild. The land is used for agriculture: habitat loss and fragmentation abc 04122014

Condors and Their Habitat

The California Condor (Gymnogyps californianus) is a surviving member of the genus Gymnogyps. These giants birds roamed the Americas in the Pleistocene epoch living off megafauna carcasses.

The 19th and 20th century brought destruction of this vulture and its habitat:

• In the California Gold Rush, condors were kept as captive pets
  
• Eggs were collected
• They got poached as museum specimens
• They suffered lead poisoning (from eating animals containing lead shot)
• DDT poisoning
• Electric power line electrocution
• Being shot at
  
• Habitat destruction and fragmentation

The remaining 22 wild condors were captured in 1987 and bred up in a zoo. In 1992 some birds were introduced into the 'wild'. In 2011, there were 394 of "the world's rarest bird species" known to be living, including 181 outside of captivity. The endangered bird is having trouble surviving in a human junkspace landscape.

" Today 70 percent (53 out of 76) of condor moralities can be attributed to human influences...For nestlings (birds younger than 6 months of age), 73 percent of known mortalities can be attributed to the consumption of microtrash, such as bottle caps and small pieces of broken glass, plastic and metal. Lead toxicosis, from the ingestion of spent ammunition, was the most important factor in juvenile condor mortality (birds between the age of 6 months and 5 years) and was the only significant cause of death in adults (birds 6 years old and older). Eight of 23 birds that died of lead poisoning still had metal or lead fragments in their gastrointestinal tract."

Image
Condor (Sarcorhamphus gryphus) Brehm, Alfred Thierleben via Zeno
video
See
Shooting endangered Eagles