Pigeons and windows

Windows have been around for ages, why hasn't the urge to fly into them been bred out of the gene pool yet?

>>1
There must be an EVOLUTIONARY ADVANTAGE. Do you want to know what it is?

>>1
Because they have not been around for ages at all. It appears you have a rather wrong idea of what "ages" means in an evolutionary context.

Planes have been around for ages, why hasn't the urge to fly into them been bred out of the gene pool yet?

Haven't windows been around since churches?

The pigeon would have to hit the window 10 times and be alive after that to have sex with another pigeon to produce a offspring to get rid of the gene. try it!!!!

>>6
If a pigeon hits a window and then reproduces, the urge to fly into them would only be increaed among the population.

You need the freak pigeons that don't fly into windows to be successful.

Btw, I saw pigeon social behaviour a month ago or so. (I was in a tall building looking down onto the roof, where they were).  This one pigeon was in the middle, and it looked like he was pestering all the others, who were just trying to ignore him.  The other pigeons all had their back turned towards him.  The bully pigeon would would pick out one individual, however, and chase it around in circles.

Then the alpha pigeon fucked the one he was chasing.  It only took about 10 seconds tho

(I am not an expert on Evolution or Biology. I barely grasp the basics and really have little interest in it other than the occasional Discovery program or news story.)

Actually, glass windows date back to at least 100 AD, from brief googling. My understanding is that that is plenty of time for Evolution to make drastic changes. See the "contamination" and subsequent speciation of the Pacific islands, for example.

Some estimates (seen in my five seconds of google) place the annual number of bird deaths in the USA due to glass collisions at over 1 billion. So, globably speaking, what? 10 billion-ish birds die from glass collision? More? The global population of birds according to one paper I found is 200-400 birds. Rough,rough guesstimate, but that sounds absurdly high, especially considering most of those birds wouldn't be anywhere near glass. Even in just a few generations, a death rate that high would surely start to affect the populations somehow.

There doesn't look to be much in the way of numbers, though; if this outrageous number is even remotely accurate, if the trend is improving or getting worse, etc.

But what, exactly, would we be breeding out, here? Is there a "glass is solid, dumbass" gene? I doubt it. I would think we are able to make that distinction thanks to our higher brain functions. It took my dog a week to learn what a mirror was. My cat still hasn't figured it out. Even after several years, my dog still tries to run straight through my glass storm door before I can open it when we go for walks. I doubt most birds are even remotely capable of figuring it out.

I have several budgies, which I allow to fly freely in my house. I have a big, completely transparent glass door that opens to my backyard near their cage (which is there for them to sleep at night or relax in during the day, not to lock them up forever).  When they were learning to fly, some of them hit the glass once or twice (softly, thankfully!), but they all quickly learned that it was there, and I've seen them hovering before it briefly or quickly turning away in flight although it's not visible, which means they know it's there.

But some pigeons from outside have crashed into my window repeatedly. Maybe parakeets are better at learning?

Anyways, I realize this isn't evolution, but rather learning, but still...

Some estimates (seen in my five seconds of google) place the annual number of bird deaths in the USA due to glass collisions at over 1 billion. So, globably speaking, what? 10 billion-ish birds die from glass collision? More? The global population of birds according to one paper I found is 200-400 birds. Rough,rough guesstimate, but that sounds absurdly high, especially considering most of those birds wouldn't be anywhere near glass. Even in just a few generations, a death rate that high would surely start to affect the populations somehow.

I think you may want to revise those figures.

>>11
Sorry, 200-400 billion birds on Earth. Supposedly 1 billion die in the US in glass collisions. Guessing 10 billion die globally in glass collisions.

Spent a few more minutes googling, but didn't find any real data.

>>12
You mean noone has yet funded a worldwide study into how many birds kill themselves flying into windows??!  HOW CAN THIS BE??

>>12
1 Billion birds?  That is 4 birds per American; I don't believe that.  I would see dead birds everywhere on the street, but I don't.

>>14

\frac{1x{10^9}}{3x{10^8}} \neq 4

>>15

Fuck this board and its shitty LaTeX

>>16
It's not shitty, your LaTeX code is: x is treated as a variable, \times is a multiplication symbol.

>>1
They don't have the urge to, they just can't see them.

>>18
That.  A better question would be,"Why haven't birds developed eyes able to see nearly transparent objects?"  The answer: not enough birds die due to windows for it to really matter, and there is no other transparent source of danger in nature.

Actually good question: Why aren't raccoons, armadillos, deers, etc. afraid of cars yet?

>>20
probably because the people who drive cars are afraid of hitting deers

>>20
Are there any figures on their road crossing success rate? I'm betting the advantage of the larger area for food gathering and mating is worth a little risk.
Birds clearly own most mammals in this respect, though.