Redditor’s Post About Bird Population And A 50/1 Bird-To-Human Ratio Sparks A Hilarious Debate

“How do I access my share of the birds?”

Ayoub

• Published in Animal Stories
• December 13, 2022

Determining the exact number of the global bird population is quite challenging since it's constantly changing. However, reasonable estimates have been made even though some birds are hard or even impossible to observe and count since they live in places that are out of reach. 

Two scientists took up the task of estimating the total number of birds on planet earth about ten years ago. They estimated that there are 200 to 400 billion birds in the world. 

It amounts to around 40 to 60 birds for each person if we compare them to 5 billion people. Sadly, the bird population is constantly decreasing. 

The bird population has been in decline since the 1500s in terms of the number of individuals and species. A Redditor who goes by the username u/suzer2017 made a post on the r/todayilearned subReddit with the following title: “TIL there are approximately 50 birds for every human on earth.”

The Reddit community had a lot of interesting reactions to the user's post. Scroll down to check out the full Reddit post, and scroll a little further to read the comments from the original post. 

Here's the original post by Reddit user u/suzer2017:

Here's how the Reddit community reacted to u/suzer2017's post:

There's nothing better than bird puns.

It keeps getting better.

A reminder that all birds are fake.

Humans weigh much more, though.

Some birds are huge, and their weight could add up.

Each person is entitled to their own share of birds.

Some people are keeping more birds to themselves.

Astronauts must be worth a lot more.

You can't compare a single species to an entire category of species.

We won't have as many of them in the future, unfortunately.

Someone needs to give us accurate figures on that.

That's why people do it so often.

You can't compare humans to something that doesn't exist.

This person is making sure their score is constantly even.

It's okay as long as they're aesthetically pleasing.

Each person can claim theirs.

They are all making sure to take it out on specific people every now and then.

There are even more trees per human, but we used to have much more.

People make conspiracy theories out of anything.

Today, we have 500 species less and 20-25% fewer birds in general. Several factors contribute to this decline, including the cutting down of forests, invasive species, contamination, and human-induced climate change.

It is estimated that the number of tropical forest birds worldwide is reduced by 144 million individuals annually. There are 9,787 known species of birds today, while 129 are extinct.

Up to 14% of all bird species are at risk of becoming extinct by the year 2100. Some birds might become "functionally extinct" (7-25% and 28-56% on oceanic islands). If you enjoyed reading this, check out similar content on our platform.

Ayoub