Kill the BIRDS!!!!

The folks at National Review's Corner are wargaming again.  No, not Iran or North Korea.  The BIRDS!


Warren Bell learns from other Corner readers that the birds have a mighty airforce.

BIRDS V. HUMANS [ Warren Bell] If it's a numbers game, we're in bad shape. According to most estimates, birds number somewhere between 100 billion and 300 billion. People top out at 6.6 billion. In fact, there are more chickens than there are people. Start eating! As for the question "where are they?" the most common answer is "right above my car." But the only scientific-ish answer is that birds are everywhere (which may be why they scare me) but especially heavily concentrated near the South pole.

I reminded Warren in an email of the human "victory" over the pigeons:

"Even at 300 billion v. 6.5 billion the odds are still in our favor.  Recall the fate of the passenger pigeon, once alleged to be the most populous bird on earth.   Even with five billion in the US, often flying in flocks that reportedly stretched for hundreds of miles, it took little effort to wipe them out completely.  The last flock of around 250,000 was obliterated on a single day in 1896."

His tongue in cheek response: 

"My whole theory revolves around the birds having organizing intelligence, so the idea of wiping them out like the passenger pigeon is going to be much more difficult.  They will hide, because as we all know, they can fly."

Didn't help the pigeons much...