Perspective by numbers

I’m an animal lover, so like many hate seeing the photos of poor little birds covered in oil, or dead, on Bay of Plenty beaches. And I loved the footage on TV of the surviving birds being cared for in a pool.

But having said that, it is useful to put the numbers in perspective.

• Birds killed by the Rena – 1,000
• Birds killed annually (in NZ) by predators (possums, stoats etc) – 25,000,000
• Birds killed daily by predators – 68,500
• Birds killed annually by hunters – 1,000,000
• Birds killed daily by hunters during hunting season – 11,000
• Chickens killed for NZers food annually – 77,000,000
• Birds killed by power lines annually – 1,700,000
• Birds killed by automobiles – 800,000
• Birds killed by wind turbines – 500

I think the Rena is an environmental disaster – definitely. But is it the worst environmental disaster of all time as some media have trumpeted? Not so sure about that.