Actually I find the estimates on the high side - Short-tailed
shearwaters are one of the more numerous birds (I think Macaroni
Penguin has similar numbers) yet even if all species had that number
of individuals you would end with 230 billion. And since most species
are very restricted in range and numbers I would assume that 100
billion is a more likely figure? Although of course if you count
captive birds the number would increase.
On 11/10/2007, L&L Knight <> wrote:
> Yes, there may be hundreds of billions of birds on the planet compared
> to 7 billion people. However, I think there are about 10,000 species
> of birds compared to 1 taxa of us. Given the population size of many
> particular species, I suspect that the number of humans is probably
> equal to the number of individuals in the "bottom" 7,000 bird species.
> That is a scary thought.
>
> I wonder if the estimates of the number of birds includes the billions
> of chooks and budgies etc that we keep in cages. How does the combined
> wild population compare to the combined captive population?
>
> Regards, Laurie.
>
> On Wednesday, October 10, 2007, at 10:38 PM, david taylor wrote:
>
> > I'm reading an interesting book at the moment and it prompted a
> > question.
> >
> > i wondered just how many birds there are in say Australia or on
> > planet earth. I'm talking total numbers rather than species. i googled
> > and read a couple of interesting pieces on the subject including some
> > research from Gaston and Blackburn which suggests there are between
> > 200 and 400 billion birds on earth! Wow! Another study estimated 100
> > billion plus birds on earth. In comparison there are around 6.6
> > billion people on earth, so our avian friends well and truly outnumber
> > us.
> >
>
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