Greetings All

First of all -- I have a major alert for everyone -- nothing has been "natural" on this continent for about 10,000 years.

We are totally fooling ourselves if we think even one spot is even remotely natural, especially in North America.

I just finished a most interesting book on the extinction of megafauna in N. America, S. America, and Australia. Guess what? We did it. We introduced rats, we created grasslands with fire, and we hunted to extinction almost every animal bigger than a Elk. Though there is still some controversy over the megafaunal extinctions, our impact on habitat from first contact is not questioned. It is estimated that 8000 species of birds have become extinct on islands secondary to humans or our commensals (eg, rats, pigs).

Our impacts now, of course, include such trivialities as global warming, etc.

In my humble opinion, admittedly based on no scientific evidence, bird feeding is about the last thing we need to worry about when it comes to potentially negative impacts on the "natural" world. And given recreation choices, it probably sizes up pretty well against most other options. We've so much deflected the course of evolution in so many ways, I am bemused by the suggestion that birdfeeding is going to make the web of nature unravel and send evolution spiraling askew.

Of course, I don't have any scientific evidence for such. We never will. Somewhere, one needs to apply this odd concept called Common Sense.

Hmmmm
Steven Mlodinow
Everett WA