Relationship With Humans
Since birds are highly visible and common animals, humans have had a relationship with them since the dawn of man. Sometimes, these relationships are mutualistic, like the cooperative honey-gathering among honeyguides and African peoples such as the Borana. Other times, they may be commensal, as when species such as the House Sparrow have benefited from human activities. Several bird species have become commercially significant agricultural pests, and some pose an aviation hazard. Human activities can also be detrimental, and have threatened numerous bird species with extinction (hunting, avian lead poisoning, pesticides, roadkill, and predation by pet cats and dogs are common sources of death for birds).
Birds can act as vectors for spreading diseases such as psittacosis, salmonellosis, campylobacteriosis, mycobacteriosis (avian tuberculosis), avian influenza (bird flu), giardiasis, and cryptosporidiosis over long distances. Some of these are zoonotic diseases that can also be transmitted to humans.
Read more about this topic: Bird
Famous quotes containing the words relationship and/or humans:
“It was a real treat when he’d read me Daisy Miller out loud. But we’d reached the point in our relationship when, in a straight choice between him and Henry James, I’d have taken Henry James any day even if Henry James were dead and not much of a one for the girls when living, either.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)
“The land is the host and humans merely guests.”
—Chinese proverb.