[HN Gopher] Oldest known wild bird lays egg at 74
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Oldest known wild bird lays egg at 74
Author : GeoAtreides
Score : 190 points
Date : 2024-12-06 16:41 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.co.uk)
| Qem wrote:
| Awesome. If they start breeding at 5, and she's already nearly
| 75, then potentially she lived to see a (grand)^13-child of
| herself being hatched. And her (grand)^13-child will still see a
| (grand)^12-uncle/aunt hatch.
| 867-5309 wrote:
| unexpected exponent
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| Yeah, I would've expected something like
| /(great-){13}grandchild/, tbh...
| cheeze wrote:
| Which is less readable than using a basic carat, but hey,
| it shows your 1337 LaTeX skill
| dmd wrote:
| in bagging area
| hammock wrote:
| Some other animals | Animal | Lifespan
| | Breeding Frequency | Potential Generations They Can
| Witness| |---------------|-------------------|-----------
| -----------------|---------------------------------------|
| | Turtles | Over 100 years | Every few years
| | 10-20 generations | | Whales
| | Over 200 years | Every 2-5 years | 20-30
| generations | | Koi Fish | Over
| 200 years | Multiple times a year | 30-50 generations
| | | Elephants | 60-70 years | Every 4-5 years
| | 10-15 generations |
|
| Forget about trees, which breed annually and you can find
| 10-100+ generations around a mother tree; fungi (similar); or
| bacteria, which can witness 1000+ generations in its lifetime
| Rendello wrote:
| Define "witness" ;)
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| Albatrosses are beautiful creatures. They mate for life. Sadly,
| many are caught in long-line fishing -- just another example of
| how we destroy everything that is beautiful in the world.
|
| "A conservative calculation of the number of albatrosses killed
| annually on Japanese longlines in southern oceans in 44 000." [1]
|
| [1]
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/000632...
| robin_reala wrote:
| I've basically stopped eating fish now: most fish is mass-
| hunted from unsustainable populations, farmed fish has horrible
| problems with disease, and there's huge collatoral damage
| against other sea-based life.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| Same here. I stopped completely. I rarely eat meat but when I
| do, it's farmed chicken. Not great either, but at least it's
| a reduction _and_ it doesn 't have as much collateral damage
| (except land clearing).
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Recirculating aquaculture systems on land _might_ be a
| solution. But it 's expensive and error prone, and the
| volumes are still very low.
| psychoslave wrote:
| Did you move to other alimentary disciplines too? Just
| curious
| robin_reala wrote:
| I'm definitely not a vegetarian by any stretch of the term,
| but I broadly restrict my meat eating to a couple of times
| a week, where it's a small amount mostly for flavour, and
| mostly organic meat where available. I basically never eat
| meat if I'm ordering from a restaurant; every restaurant in
| my area at least has great vegetarian / vegan options
| available.
| kristopolous wrote:
| It's hunting wild game at an industrial, global, scale, for
| billions of people among hundreds of countries and expecting
| things will magically work themselves out indefinitely, with
| strong emphasis on "magically work". This is certainly a dumb
| idea.
|
| Some like to imagine this is defensible. We've all learned
| the futility of disputing with people's imaginations.
|
| I'd rather things weren't this way as well. Seafood is
| delicious
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| Absolutely right. I would be happy to eat fish once and a
| while but only if I caught one myself. People imagine it is
| defensible because (a) the cognitive dissonance is too
| great for most and (b) industrial civilization has made it
| so that industrial farming is the only easy way to live.
|
| Some people say, "then go live on a farm and grow it
| yourself". But the problem is that even today, to get any
| land, you have to have a _lot_ of money first, which means
| working to further the system again. There is no recourse
| for the poor who might even choose a different life if that
| were an option.
| eptcyka wrote:
| No, the problem with everyone livivng off the land is
| that is incredibly inefficient. On the other hand, we
| have subsidized every kind of farming to such an extent
| that it now cannot survive without the induced demand.
| There are thousands of livelihoods today that depend on
| the process that is destroying livelihoods of tomorrow.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| > No, the problem with everyone livivng off the land is
| that is incredibly inefficient.
|
| True, but only in a world with so many people. The
| alternative is something efficient but destructive.
| kulahan wrote:
| I'm not trying to be preachy, just take issue with the
| idea that there is no way for the poor to avoid eating
| factory farmed meat - at a bare minimum, we can agree
| that vegetarianism is possible, no?
| Y_Y wrote:
| > We've all learned the futility of disputing with people's
| imaginations.
|
| Certainly not. I myself have to relearn this lesson over
| and over, not to mention people who are still out here
| trying to change hearts and minds with emotional and
| rational arguments.
|
| See also "you can't get someone to understand something
| when their salary (or identity or emotional wellbeing etc.)
| depends on them not understanding:
| https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/11/30/salary
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| I think "emotional well-being" is especially crucial
| here, more than salary even.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Most of it isn't even good. I'll admit I'm not a good cook,
| but most fish just doesn't hit spots, and it's super
| expensive to boot.
| hansvm wrote:
| Most fish in most US markets aren't worth buying,
| especially if you pay extra for "wild Alaskan cod" or
| whatever. Even a good cook will struggle with meat that
| deteriorated for a couple days in a holding tank, was
| frozen too slowly, re-thawed to market as "fresh", and
| frozen again when it didn't sell soon enough.
|
| Farmed atlantic salmon, especially if it's pretty light
| colored, is the thing I've found that's most likely to be
| decent in various parts of the country without having to
| experiment with too many brands. The "belly" cut (with a
| thinner region where the ribs were) is best.
|
| Luckily, salmon is one of the easier things for a home cook
| to get right. The higher fat content makes it more
| forgiving. Lightly salt it, throw it on a lightly oiled
| sheet pan, and bake at 200F till it's done (around 1hr
| depending on your oven, recipes usually recommend higher
| temperatures, but if it's overcooked it's less pleasant,
| and the lower temperature gives you more leeway as you're
| learning what that looks like in person -- watch a quick
| video while it cooks showing what "done" should be, but
| it's just as the fish starts flaking apart instead of
| sticking together, and the flakes shouldn't be very firm or
| dry yet).
|
| Then make something to pair it with. Blacken some asparagus
| (peel any tough woody bits, especially if it's winter or
| the asparagus are big) or broccoli for a minute or two in a
| hot pan, sprinkle with a bit of salt, maybe squeeze in a
| lemon, and definitely melt a knob of butter over the
| veggies. Maybe sprinkle in a few pine nuts at that point to
| toast in the hot pan.
|
| If you want to impress everyone, make a sauce to go with
| it. The simplest that comes to mind is to heat up some soy
| sauce, honey, garlic, and ginger together, cooking a minute
| or two till it's syrupy.
|
| If you added lemon and pine nuts to the veggies, a lemon
| butter sauce might be appropriate instead. The basic idea
| is to cook the flavors down till there's not much liquid
| (e.g., sweating garlic in 1 lemon's worth of juice for 1-2
| min), take the pan off the heat, and once it's not much
| more than room temperature you'll add in a few tablespoons
| of cold butter, one at a time, and whisk those in till
| they're melted. Butter is naturally a mixture of fat and
| water, and if you don't get it too hot it'll stay melted
| but still "mixed" (emulsified) and give you a thick, creamy
| sauce. Maybe watch a quick video on the idea first, but
| even if you "fail" you'll still get something that tastes
| good and is just thinner than you were attempting to make.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Good recipe, though I tend to use olive oil instead
| of/with butter.
| lordnacho wrote:
| I think you're right, and I've decided that the same is true
| for meat, in that large animals are basically in the same
| category as us in terms of morality, ie I don't know where
| the line goes but it's not ok to kill them.
|
| However, I am a massive hypocrite and I don't let my moral
| thoughts bother my everyday consumption patterns.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| Try starting with one less meat meal a week. When that no
| longer feels difficult, try one less meal again.
|
| Even if you don't settle on a meat-free diet, any reduction
| in consumption makes a huge difference en masse.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| I have found that sometimes with a vegetarian diet I feel
| like I need more protein. But a balance I've found that
| works is 1-2 meat meals per month is enough to balance it
| out.
| nelblu wrote:
| I felt the same way when I started reducing meat. But
| then I started substituting it with Whey protein and
| Greek yogurt, and now I eat meat once in 3 to 4 weeks.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| Make sure you get a lot of beans. They are pretty good on
| protein.
|
| How do you notice that you need more protein? I hear that
| quite a bit but I have no idea how it manifests.
| gambiting wrote:
| I had the same thought actually - what did it for me was
| realizing that I started to eat meat 3 times a day -
| breakfast, lunch and dinner all had meat in them, almost
| always. But when I was growing up in Poland, you'd have
| meat maybe 2-3 times a week - not because we were poor,
| but purely because no one looked at a meal of vegetable
| dumplings(or many other meat-free dishes) as something
| worse compared to meat - it had the same cultural status
| as a porkchop. But now I live in the UK and not eating
| meat for dinner is almost immediately seen as weird, or
| "oh you're a vegeterian now?" - no....I just don't eat
| meat for every meal? Why is this immediately seen as
| suspicious? And again, no one in Poland ever thought of
| these meals as "vegetarian" - they were just normal
| meals, not a special lifestyle choice.
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| Do you have any recommendations/recipes for vegan Polish
| dishes (i.e. dishes that happen to be vegan)?
| nothercastle wrote:
| Deep fry tofu squares in potato starch. Eat them with
| rice and broccoli.
|
| Dip the tofu in spicy red Korean paste sauce or skiyaki
| sauce.
| hansvm wrote:
| Vegetarian dishes are common. Vegan dishes are a tiny bit
| more rare.
|
| - Pickle soup is a classic (use a recipe with fermented
| pickles, which are pretty easy to make at home, but
| larger grocers often also sell them refrigerated as a
| kosher product). Aside from the sour cream it's naturally
| vegan, and a vegan sour cream might work fine.
|
| - Borscht is a delicious beet soup.
|
| - Wild mushroom perogies are also pretty close, save for
| egg and sour cream in the dough. Vegan substitutes would
| definitely work there, else if you experiment a bit with
| the hydration a basic hot water and flour dough would be
| close.
|
| - Cabbage soup is similar to pickle soup in spirit (using
| sauerkraut, another lacto-fermented vegetable).
|
| - Placki Ziemniaczane (somewhat similar to US hash
| browns) is often served with mushroom sauce. Sometimes
| it'll have egg as a binder, but that's not essential for
| a very similar dish (replace it if you'd like, or add a
| bit more flour and water, or just leave it out).
|
| - Braised sauerkraut
|
| - Krupnik is a barley soup, often made with meat stocks,
| but vegetable stocks aren't bad either.
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| Thanks!
| pvaldes wrote:
| But remember that Polish beet soup has often milk or
| cream added on it. If is pink it has milk. If is purple
| not necessarily.
| soperj wrote:
| Question for vegans, are they allowed to eat bread (on
| account of the yeast)?
| shafyy wrote:
| Assuming this question comes in good faith (because I had
| many bad faithed questions of this type, unfortunately):
| Yes.
| soperj wrote:
| It is in good faith. I don't understand why though?
| gambiting wrote:
| Funnily enough, same question is often asked of devout
| Muslims, since your average loaf of bread is 1-2% ABV,
| and the answer is also yes, yes you are.
| soperj wrote:
| Why is the answer yes in that case?
| usrusr wrote:
| Culture and chemistry are separate entities.
| gambiting wrote:
| Because leading Islamic scholars have decided it's ok.
| Just like leading Jewish scholars have decided that even
| the most orthodox Jews can drink fresh water, even though
| all water everywhere in the world contains microscopic
| creusteceans. Religions and belief systems don't have to
| be perfectly logical(not in the "ah gotcha" scope
| anyway).
| shafyy wrote:
| I'm not an expert on Polish dishes, but I learned that
| it's pretty easy to make any dish vegan if you are an
| average cook. If you live in a bigger cities, you'll find
| many meat alternatives. Pick the ones that you think
| comes closest to replace the meat in your dish. Replace
| butter with olive oil or margerine. Replace milk with oat
| milk (or soy milk).
|
| Replacing cheese is the hardest, but there are
| increasingly better options now.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| My parents both grew up on farms and for them meat was
| something you had on Sundays. The belief that a meal is
| only complete with meat seems pretty new.
| usrusr wrote:
| Ten people halving their meat intake has more positive
| impact than four people going full vegan. Unfortunately
| the idea of "less meaty" dining is entirely unknown where
| I live, it's either completely meatless or meat as the
| defining element with some sides as fillers. Meatless is
| high status (even if hated by some), meat-heavy is high
| status (even if hated by others), but simply does not
| happen, except perhaps behind closed doors.
| zulban wrote:
| "basically in the same category as us in terms of
| morality". Nah. I use intelligence as a proxy for capacity
| to suffer. So eating a monkey is worse than eating a cow,
| which is worse than eating a fish or chicken.
|
| Environmental impact is another facet tho.
|
| If you just think "eating all animals is 100% horrible"
| then you're not facing the nuances of reality. You can make
| a realistic change like eating a bit less whales and cows
| and eat chickens instead. It's not perfect but it's better.
|
| With your all or nothing thinking you might also want to
| avoid eating all eggs because egg farms are so inhumane for
| the chickens. Whereas if you buy the eggs where the
| chickens are treated better like free range, it's still bad
| but it's far better. And you're helping shape the industry.
| butlike wrote:
| There's a big assumption in using that proxy as a
| capacity to suffer.
| delichon wrote:
| I basically survive on grass finished beef. It's for my
| health, but it is also among the most ethical animal
| choices. They roam undeveloped wilderness (adjacent to my
| home) almost entirely uninterferred with until their last
| day, then are killed with little pain. I wouldn't make such
| a trade off over a life of more freedom and risk, but I
| know people who would and do.
| robin_reala wrote:
| Cattle produce extreme amounts of methane, which is a far
| worse greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. It might be
| ethical for the cows, but not for the climate
| unfortunately.
| delichon wrote:
| Cattle produce a normal amount of methane for ruminants,
| and we evolved to eat ruminants, following them around in
| their migrations, and eating grass indirectly through
| them. I was a vegan for years and my health deteriorated.
| I honestly believe that I would be dead now if I didn't
| change. I do not feel morally ambiguous about eating the
| food that I was evolved to eat, for the purpose of my own
| survival, and emitting the necessary quantity of
| greenhouse gasses in the process.
|
| I'm not willing to live the smallest, least healthy life
| I can tolerate in order to make room for more people to
| do the same. A high population count does not strike me
| as a worthy goal, but a healthy and happy one does.
| lambdaba wrote:
| Same here bro/sis, eating only beef was transformative
| for autoimmune issues I had for years. There was simply
| no alternative that would give me a good quality of life,
| just heavy medication with awful side effects.
| tomthe wrote:
| Wait, you eat only beef? Or beef as the only source of
| meat?
| lambdaba wrote:
| Only beef, it's a variant of the carnivore diet that
| excludes common autoimmune triggers, like eggs & dairy.
| Vampiero wrote:
| Won't that give you gout?
| lambdaba wrote:
| No, there are people following a leaner version of the
| diet who have no such issues. I eat moderate protein
| though (80-100g).
| andrekandre wrote:
| > Only beef, it's a variant of the carnivore diet that
| excludes common autoimmune triggers, like eggs & dairy.
|
| what about chicken, or fish? are those considered auto-
| immune triggers?
| lambdaba wrote:
| There is a lot of low quality chicken, both fish and
| chicken have very little fat. And their fatty acid
| profile is not ideal.
| cactacea wrote:
| > undeveloped wilderness
|
| No, that is now pasture. Be truthful to yourself. Cattle
| ranching, particularly in "undeveloped wilderness" is
| incredibly destructive of the local environment.
| walthamstow wrote:
| Not saying GP does, but it's been so long since we cut
| all the trees down in Britain that people here think
| grass fields are undeveloped wilderness
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| I am a pro wildlife photographer and spend hours studying
| birds. And there is so little undeveloped wilderness left
| that it's just very sad. Even relatively wild places
| usually have some human influence.
| cactacea wrote:
| I've traveled many tens of thousands of miles of
| gravel/dirt roads and 4wd trails all over the USA. There
| is essentially no place left in the lower 48 that is
| actually untouched. You can be 100 miles from the nearest
| paved road and still find trash and other impacts.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| Same is true for vegetables too... many small animals are
| killed when preparing the earth (mice, snakes,...) then
| many more with pesticides and other chemicals.
|
| Eating grass fed cows probably kills less animals per
| calorie than many vegetables.
| kibwen wrote:
| Even if you're not into saving the environment, the oceans
| are absolutely disgusting by this point and I wouldn't trust
| anything fished out of it.
| nativeit wrote:
| It's also worth noting that the seafood aisle at the grocery
| store is essentially entirely the product of slave labor, at
| least at some point along the supply chain.
| mistercheph wrote:
| maybe if you're shopping at megafood inc., I know plenty of
| professional commercial fishermen and this is far from
| true, go to a fishmonger and ask him questions about where
| the fish comes from!
| heresie-dabord wrote:
| Birds' eggs are remarkable in of themselves but also for their
| importance to the food chain.
|
| Birds have existed for a long time and we eat a lot of them.[0]
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poultry_farming
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| There is a moral difference between eating what you kill and
| just killing. The former is part of how life works and the
| latter is immoral and unjustified waste. If there is
| collateral damage, we are doing something wrong.
| lolinder wrote:
| Doubly so because most species of albatross are at least
| threatened and nearly half are endangered. The ethics of
| poultry farming are dubious for many reasons, but there's
| no comparison to pushing entire species towards extinction.
| heresie-dabord wrote:
| > If there is collateral damage, we are doing something
| wrong.
|
| There is _extensive_ collateral damage, in extinctions,
| habitat loss, and industrial pollution at global scale.
|
| For all the beauty on this planet, we very clearly are an
| abusive, cruel species.
| madflame991 wrote:
| > They mate for life.
|
| Not really; see https://news.mit.edu/2022/divorce-albatross-
| shy-males-0913 and
| https://oceanconservancy.org/blog/2020/02/13/albatross-reall...
| alcover wrote:
| > we destroy everything
|
| With human birth rate declining maybe Nature will have a chance
| to heal ?
| soperj wrote:
| This particular albatross is on her 4th mate, so...for varying
| definitions of "life" i guess.
| dzonga wrote:
| then you wonder how old dinosaurs got ?
| nativeit wrote:
| Isn't the distinction sort of moot at this point? I seem to
| remember things setting into a "birds = dinosaurs" paradigm,
| although I am almost certainly oversimplifying things.
| Swizec wrote:
| > Isn't the distinction sort of moot at this point? I seem to
| remember things setting into a "birds = dinosaurs" paradigm,
| although I am almost certainly oversimplifying things.
|
| Birds _are_ dinosaurs. Specifically they're the avian branch
| of the theropods. Distinction has to do with hip bone
| structure - for lizards the hip joint goes out sideways, for
| dinosaurs and birds it goes down (iirc). Then dinosaurs have
| that big bone between their legs whereas for birds it
| developed into a keel-bone I believe.
|
| We know dinosaurs had to have been sortof-birds because for a
| lizard to reach that size it would've had to live hundreds of
| years. Whereas birds have a period of rapid growth when
| young, which enables them to reach near full adult size in a
| single breeding season.
|
| Basically: All birds are dinosaurs but not all dinosaurs are
| birds.
| tokai wrote:
| dzonga didn't bring up any distinction. On the contrary. An
| old bird breeding naturally raises questions about the
| lifespans of non-avian dinosaurs, because they are related.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Birds are a subset of dinosaurs; not all dinosaurs were
| birds, though all current dinosaurs are birds.
| zie wrote:
| I thought crocodiles counted? They are related to birds,
| but clearly are not birds.
| osrec wrote:
| 74 seems incredibly old! Is there a chance someone has been
| swapping the tags to mess with the researchers?!
| londons_explore wrote:
| At least recently, there are enough photos of this bird that
| any tag-swapping would have been noticed.
|
| Might not be true back in the 50's/60's/70's though, although
| back then there would be far less reason to do any swapping.
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| >although back then there would be far less reason to do any
| swapping
|
| Why?
| marcellus23 wrote:
| This bird would not have been the oldest known wild bird.
| pvaldes wrote:
| The bird was less famous then.
|
| Is not probable, but not impossible
|
| In theory a soldier or fishermen could have accidentally
| killed the first bird and reassign the tag at the sea, but
| I think that we could safely discard that because in that
| case, the female would have changed its nest location
| suddenly that year. Even more strange, would have changed
| its partner also.
|
| To re-tag a bird that also occupy the same nest as the
| first bird, we would need typically to do it in the nest
| area. That would need a scientist (typically as the number
| of people visiting those remote places is scarce), and one
| with a known name. A daughter of the bird could have
| occupied the empty nest spot.
|
| But this is all speculation, of course. Marks on the bird
| could provide the required info. With mammals with spots is
| much easier, each animal has a different pattern. With
| Albatross, the valid patterns could be on the face leg
| scales or in some scars.
|
| After death the bones could be read also for confirm the
| age, but DNA analysis should be the weapon of choice in
| this cases.
| slicktux wrote:
| I love these specific species of Albatross! So beautiful! They
| remind me of an the western gull; except bigger and not as loud.
| travisgriggs wrote:
| When humans reproduce at higher ages, the odds of issues and
| abnormalities increase. Does the same happen with birds?
| sriacha wrote:
| That's a good question. A quick scan of the literature suggests
| that in some birds the answer is no. I believe this is thought
| to be due to the evolutionary constraints of flying.
|
| "Some seabird species exhibit extremely slow age-related
| declines in both survival and reproductive output, and even
| increase reproductive success as they get older. Slow avian
| senescence is thought to be coupled evolutionarily with delayed
| maturity and low annual fecundity. " [1]
|
| "Long-term population studies of wild seabirds (e.g. terns,
| gulls and albatrosses) suggest that these species show little
| or no decline in reproductive output, even when increasing
| mortality rates suggest the occurrence of senescence in other
| systems." [2]
|
| [1]
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S05315...
| [2]
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S05315...
| amatecha wrote:
| 74! Wowzers. I know someone who has a ~45 year old Goffin
| cockatoo, which has now survived multiple owners' passing! Who
| would have thought you need to consider a "legacy plan" for a pet
| bird?! haha
|
| As a random aside, we play various pop/electronic music for the
| bird and she very happily/avidly dances to it. :)
| kulahan wrote:
| I was shocked to read about the maximum lifespans for some
| birds in captivity. It seems like they're all built for
| extremely long lives! Birds that live to 80 in captivity are
| not uncommon at all. Really threw me for a loop
| pvaldes wrote:
| Hope they give this poor Goffin a well deserved partner after
| all this time. Disco music definitely can help with that first
| date
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