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How L.A.’s bird population is shaped by historic redlining and racist loan practices
LA Times ^ | 11 Oct 2023 | Dorany Peneda

Posted on 10/13/2023 6:19:52 PM PDT by rey

“ How L.A.’s bird population is shaped by historic redlining and racist loan practices”

On a recent afternoon in L.A.’s Boyle Heights neighborhood, Christian Benitez and Eric M. Wood stood outside a corner liquor store searching for birds.

The researchers spotted a house sparrow and pulled binoculars to their eyes. “They’re all over the shrubbery in Boyle Heights,” said Wood, an associate professor of ecology at Cal State Los Angeles.

Among the most ubiquitous and abundant songbirds in the world, house sparrows are urban creatures that thrive where people do. They’re resilient, adaptable and aggressive, and are found around buildings and streets, scavenging food crumbs or nesting in roof tiles.

But less than 10 miles to the northeast, in the wealthy city of San Marino, house sparrows were nowhere to be heard.

Instead of the sparrows, ravens, common pigeons and a Cooper’s hawk the bird watchers spotted in Boyle Heights, the manicured lawns and mature trees of San Marino bristled with a very different assortment of birds.

“There goes a band-tailed pigeon right over there,” Wood exclaimed, turning his attention from a red-tailed hawk. They also recognized acorn woodpeckers, a California towhee, dozens of turkey vultures circling overhead, a dark-eyed junco, a mockingbird, an Anna’s hummingbird and a black phoebe.

It was, the researchers said, a vivid illustration of the so-called luxury effect — the phenomenon by which wealthier, and typically whiter, areas attract a larger and more diverse population of birds.

“That huge difference in wealth, separated by only a few miles, really surprised me when I first moved here,” said Wood, who is from Santa Rosa, in the Bay Area.

(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; US: California
KEYWORDS: birds; racism; segregation
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1 posted on 10/13/2023 6:19:52 PM PDT by rey
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To: rey

“ Otherwise, urban wildlife — in our case, birds — will likely continue to be as segregated as a city’s population.”

From the article.


2 posted on 10/13/2023 6:20:58 PM PDT by rey
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To: rey

Pigeon reparations! Honestly I’m convinced these simpletons get aroused when they come up with something new to be outraged about


3 posted on 10/13/2023 6:23:02 PM PDT by j.havenfarm (22 years on Free Republic, 12/10/22! more then 6500 replies and still not shutting up!)
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To: rey
Have they controlled for amount of concrete, asphalt and buildings as opposed to trees and grass? Or would that get in the way of their prewritten conclusion?
4 posted on 10/13/2023 6:23:30 PM PDT by KarlInOhio (Democrats' version of MAGA: Making America the Gulag Archipelago. Now with "Formal Deprogramming")
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To: rey

Is this real?


5 posted on 10/13/2023 6:23:42 PM PDT by EEGator
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To: rey

What they waste money on. Wow.


6 posted on 10/13/2023 6:23:58 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: rey

This is the very acme of imbecility.


7 posted on 10/13/2023 6:26:03 PM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion, or satire, or both.)
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To: rey

Birds have wings. They can fly where they want.


8 posted on 10/13/2023 6:26:16 PM PDT by HartleyMBaldwin
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To: rey

9 posted on 10/13/2023 6:27:47 PM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: BenLurkin

It never ends. The demand for racism long ago outstripped the supply.


10 posted on 10/13/2023 6:30:02 PM PDT by Right Brother (Pray for God's intervention to stop UMCRevMom's invasion of Free Republic)
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To: rey

He’s obviously never had to go manno-a-manno with the Wild Turkeys in Downtown Minneapolis. They’re all over and get mean.


11 posted on 10/13/2023 6:30:21 PM PDT by blackdog ((Z28.310) My dog Sam eats purple flowers.)
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To: rey

Use to be lots of yardbird in Souf Central… now they’re all fighting gallos! Orale!


12 posted on 10/13/2023 6:33:46 PM PDT by Levy78 (Reject modernity, embrace tradition. )
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To: rey
An angry robin in my back yard has been calling me a racist for more than a year now. I always thought it had rabies, or something like that. But after reading this article, I guess the robin is correct.

I am very ashamed.


13 posted on 10/13/2023 6:34:06 PM PDT by Leaning Right (The steal is real.)
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To: rey

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dorany-pineda-575500135


14 posted on 10/13/2023 6:35:44 PM PDT by blackdog ((Z28.310) My dog Sam eats purple flowers.)
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To: Leaning Right

DOES NOT LOOK LIKE THE ROBINS I was raised around.


15 posted on 10/13/2023 6:37:19 PM PDT by ridesthemiles
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To: rey
In a related story, Peacocks have joined the ranks of the tree canopies in my neighborhood. They seem to get along quite well with the Guinea Hens and eat the same feed we pass around the neighborhood to place on our back decks. They mostly prefer acorns and bugs though.

You'd be amazed at what you can find cheap on Craigslist.

16 posted on 10/13/2023 6:41:06 PM PDT by blackdog ((Z28.310) My dog Sam eats purple flowers.)
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To: rey

What’s racist about using empirical data to identify the deadbeats?


17 posted on 10/13/2023 6:41:13 PM PDT by Paal Gulli
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To: rey

A western liberal may be defined as being someone who is possessed by a sneaking suspicion that somehow, somewhere, someone may not be convinced that everyone everywhere in traditional society is driven by hate, bigotry, racism, xenophobia, who are be denigrated as homophobic, transphobic, gynophobic, Islamophobic, and as ignorant deniers that Climate Change is such a danger as to warrant draconian restrictions by the Left, And which propaganda must be magnified in order to for the Left to justify themselves the Left as saviors of the oppressed and endangered, while they actually promote fornication, abortion, racism etc. Thus fostering wokephobia.


18 posted on 10/13/2023 6:48:46 PM PDT by daniel1212 (Turn 2 the Lord Jesus who saves damned+destitute sinners on His acct, believe, b baptized+follow HIM)
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To: rey
It was, the researchers said, a vivid illustration of the so-called luxury effect — the phenomenon by which wealthier, and typically whiter, areas attract a larger and more diverse population of birds.

Whiter? San Marino has a large Chinese population.

19 posted on 10/13/2023 6:49:31 PM PDT by Fiji Hill
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To: rey

Okay. I’ve read the entire article. Memorized it, actually.
And I think Wendy Addams, Lurch, and the rest summarize it the best.

https://youtu.be/D6KdeXrL0rE?si=QaZjU1cTym5qungq

(Go ahead and click on the link. You know you want to.)


20 posted on 10/13/2023 6:50:26 PM PDT by Leaning Right (The steal is real.)
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