>>156908
I forgot the last one and maybe the most important. There seems to be an extreme lack of insects of all kinds. Can't remember the last time I hit one with my car. No bees are coming to my garden. Hardly any wasps. Haven't had a mosquito bite me all year. No pests in my garden. It's like they've just vanished and the few I do see from time to time are acting lethargic. Even the ants have stopped coming into my house which is very unusual since I'm usually fighting an all out war with them this time of year. I poked a fire ant nest the other day and none of them came out of it.

not sure where you are or what, but it's fine in Canada. Maybe some sort of pesticide issues. Can't say I know.

>>156911
>Maybe some sort of pesticide issues.
The thought had crossed my mind. My "local area" is about 200 acres by the way. At least that's about as much land as I walk on foot regularly.

Something else I've noticed is the trees are dying off everywhere. They have some kind of blight or fungus or something. It turns orange when it rains and is greenish/brownish when it's dry. It's covering everything. I had to power wash my house last year because it was so bad. The funny thing is it doesn't grow under window sills. By that I mean it'll be covering the siding of the entire house but there is about a 2-5 inch gap between the bottom of windows and doors and the growth of the fungus. This is in directly sunlight as well. I'm wonder if it's falling from the sky.

Everything is really combustible even with regular rain too. I burned some leaves back in winter and the fire would jump with the smallest ember. Been doing the burning leaves routine for years now and it was never that bad. Fires wouldn't jump off as quickly. It was so bad last winter that I gave up on my usual method of making many smell piles and burning them in place. I ended up raking everything into a pit because I was so worried about it.

I've had a bunch of perfectly healthy and otherwise strong trees having branches die in the tops. Entire sections of the trees fall out of them now. It sounds like a war zone some nights even with no wind. Already had two fall on buildings that have been there for decades without issues. The trees always dropped small branches but now they're dropping entire sections. I've had two where one half of the tree died and fell. So now they are massive half tress split in half right up the middle all the way to the top.

Maybe related: Since about two years ago we've had certain trees that bloom in spring start blooming in the middle of winter. We'll get late spring/early fall type weather for 1-2 weeks. Then a cold snap that only drops the temp. to above freezing. Then another batch of mild weather with rain. Every now and again the temp. will plummet down below 0 sometimes with heavy winds. Then a day or two later it's back to the spring-like weather. It's really strange.

The lack of insects worry me the most. I noticed it about 10 years ago. How I never hit any with my windshield anymore. When I first started driving and when I was a child you couldn't go further than a mile after washing your car before you'd nail one. If you waited a week or so you would have hit so many that you were forced to clean the outside of the windshield. If you rode a motorcycle they were nailing you all of the time to the point where you couldn't ride without a full face helmet. But now I never hit them at all.

I'm outside a lot so I notice these type of things. I suppose if I lived in a city I wouldn't. I didn't really pay attention to these things when I did because there was so many other things to worry about.

Hmm... not really. There's been a lot of toads this year due to a much higher than average amount of rain, but since I don't go out much I wouldn't notice much else.
Oh, it took a while for the mosquitos to come out, which was nice. I'm going to assume it's related to all the rain, too, since there must be some heat needed to hatch their eggs or something.

I think animals becoming more tame is an unfortunate part of us encroaching into their environment and people feeding them and otherwise telling them that humans are providers of sustenance. It just happens with some of them, I remember as a kid my dad would intentionally try to spook animals by stomping and waving his arms to show them that humans aren't friends and they should stay wild.

>>156909
>There seems to be an extreme lack of insects of all kinds.
Yeah, that's unfortunately our new reality. The insect collapse is a few percentage points globally per year. We're in the epoch of mass extinction caused by humans through development, pollution and climate change. The food chain means it's causing other animal numbers to collapse as well. Maybe the animals you mentioned seek out humans due to a lost natural food supply.

>>156914
>feeding the animals
I am...guilty as charged. But we've been feeding them all my life and they never really got too tame. They might be willing to munch on some corn 10 feet away. But the moment you stood up or walked towards them they'd run to the woods or up a tree and wait for you to leave. Every now and again you'd get one that was tamer. I have a squirrel that's like that. But I'm pretty sure it's one of the ones I bottle fed and raised from the time it was a baby. I kept it from then until they were about 5 months old then I released them into the woods around my house. Well I put a massive cage in the woods and left the top open and after awhile they decided to leave and never return.

I throw out corn for deer and birdseed in feeders. That and humming bird feeders. It always attracted animals but they never got so tame that you could pet them. The rabbit I touched the other day was at the edge of a field far away from any homes. I'm the only person that regularly walks through there. But he didn't seem to mind me at all nor did the others.

Concerning insects: One nice thing is the lack of ticks. The ticks were horrible for the last decade or so. Couldn't walk outside without being swarmed by them. Was yanking at least one off everyday and usually more than that. Had to get in the habit of taking a shower whenever I returned from the outdoors and not leaving my dirty clothes laying around on the floor.

This year I've pulled off a grand total of two ticks. Both were only attached for at hour or two at most. Usually, I would always miss one or two and find them days later.

The flip side to this is now when ticks bite me they leave horrible itchy bumps that turn red and don't heal for weeks. I have one on my waistline right now that's been there for 3 weeks. The tick wasn't on me long and I was really careful when I pulled it off. So no idea why I'm having reactions like this. I've been getting bit by ticks all my life and as a kid would sometimes find some fat ones in my hair or other hard to reach places.

I've noticed my dogs and cats aren't picking them up at all either. Now and again they might have one crawling on them that they bring into the house. Which usually ends up on me. But I haven't had to treat them for ticks or pull a tick off of them for at least the last two years. Maybe longer. I don't see many wild animals covered in them anymore either.

>>156908
lately? mate, all this shit happened decades ago. herbivores willingly go to human places because predators fear the human smell lol

You know I was driving though a small country road a few weeks ago, when ny car suddenly stopped. Seemed like both the engine and battery died instantly. After about 15 minutes of fiddling it went back on.
Weird thing is, though, that when I checked my phone it said that over 2 hours had passed.

>>156908
>1)
>2)
Might be caused by neurological diseases (most famously rabies but it could be other things) also could just be a byproduct of these creatures having positive interactions with humans feeding them
>3)
You might simply be seeing toxoplasmosis in action, which can effect squirrels
>4)
>5)
As another one pointed out this may be from pesticides in the area, it could also be from global warming effecting breeding and migration cycles of certain animals
>6)
I do know that deer sometimes play dead but that doesn't sound like what's happening, best guess is disease but I'm not sure if I know a disease that leaves deer in that state

>>156908
>The birds sing at night now but don't sing loudly in the mornings
Noticed this in South Australia. Birds sing at any time of the night.

>>156908
There is a lot of dead birds at my workplace and I do not know why. Just last month I've found two dead green woodpeckers, a few pigeons and a dozen of dead crows. Seriously there was a lot of dead crows. It makes me kinda uneasy.

I think the birds sing at night because the lights are 24/7 and make them think it’s dawn, exhausting them and screwing up their internal clock.

From the littlest most passive aggressions this truly is the devil’s world.

>>156908
Also, about the deer but are you not aware of Chronic Wasting Disease? Maybe it isn’t widespread in your region yet. It might explain your weird and lethargic deer.
Shooting them is the most merciful thing to do at that point.

>>156975
It isn't CWD as far as I know. I think it's something called blue tongue. At least that's what the old folks told me it might be. They're so out of it I walk right up on them with pistol and shoot them in the head. Breaks my heart every time but I'm not going to let them lay there and suffer while flies are eating them alive.

>>156974
>I think the birds sing at night because the lights are 24/7
I think this as well but it wasn't a problem until about a year ago. But now I think I know what it is. I think the new LED street lights are putting off light that tricks them into thinking it's day time. The old MH/HPS lights didn't put out white light. They couldn't have cared less about them.

>>156953
I too stumbled upon a bunch of birds that died for no reason that I could see a few weeks ago. I've also noticed that both the crows and pidgins stopped coming around.

I miss my crow friends. They used to come every morning and hang out on my porch waiting for me to toss them bread. They'd follow me around when I walked my property too and alert me to dangers ahead on my path. Haven't seen the crows in a few weeks now. I hope they're okay. They've lived here for years. Well they had a routine of coming here at the same times everyday and hosting their meeting in my backyard for years at least.

I've also noticed that the geese are nowhere to be seen despite using my pond as a breeding ground for decades now. But I don't mind them being gone that much because they were assholes.

>>156942
I've been suffering from lost time myself a bunch over the past few years. Would love to hear more about your issues. Unless you're just implying we're all crazy or something.

I sometimes 'zone out' at say 1am then check the clock a few minutes later only to see it's 5-6am and the sun is about to come up. Commented on this on IRC a few times over the past few weeks. Although it has been happening for years. I think I might have absence seizures without being aware of it or something like that.

>>156917
I've lived where I live now for over 30 years with only a short break to go live in a city for about half a decade. All this stuff is new. I have a routine I keep to and I walk a large property on foot multiple times a day. I also stay up late most of the time (and usually all night when I do). I'm pretty well versed in how the animals around where I live act. They aren't just recently getting used to people either. We've always treated the animals well and even though they're used to me the deer and other small animals were never this lethargic before. It's not like I live in a subdivision and hand feeding them or anything. We keep a healthy distance most of the time and we try not to get them too used to us. Since I don't want the deer eating everything in my garden.

>>156908
I saw a fox in the parking lot of my local grocery store a week ago. it wasn't even a particularly rural area. don't know why it was there

>>156908
>The birds sing at night now but don't sing loudly in the mornings.
I've noticed this as well, just this year. Don't remember ever hearing them sing at night before or maybe it was rare.

The deers in my area are still very nervous. I can barely even get a picture of them, they run as soon as they see people. I finally got a picture the other day but it was late afternoon and still I couldn't get close so I had to use 10x zoom.

Rabbits and hares are the same. Though at a camp ground I went to the rabbits were not too bothered by people. But that's just it. Animals adapt to there environment. Nobody is shooting rabbits at a camping ground so they don't get that nervous. But people hunt deer in my area so they run as soon as they spot somebody.

Foxes are like that too. They are nervous in some places but not in others. I went to a conservation park by the beach and a fox just casually walked by my car as I was driving it. Hunting is banned there so they would get more used to people. I didn't get a picture of it though. I probably could have but by the time the thought occurred to me I had psst it.

The muskrats and rabbits in my area don't fear people and even let me walk up and take pictures of them.

Bumping this to say I've noticed an extreme lack of lighting bugs (fireflys) this year. Used to be the fields and my yard would be full of thousands of them in the summer. Now I only see one or two at a time. Lonely lighting bugs can't find any girl lightening bugs to have sex with.

>>159858
Bugs just no longer exist.

>>159859
I feel so bad about catching a bunch in a jar as a child just for them to die before morning. We thought it was cool to have lighting jars. Everyone did it and our parents encouraged it.

I wish I could help animals better. On Monday I saw a lone slug on a busy and extremely hot sidewalk, but I was feeling too socially awkward and embarrassed to grab it and throw it into the bushes. I felt bad the whole day about that and still do, even if it's "just a slug".
I also have this problem where I can't really be happy about seeing cute strays or feral animals in person, my mind always goes to a place of worry that they might fall prey to something or get run over. There's a mole hill right outside my window and I get stressed thinking about the lawnmower guy coming again soon, even though moles are most likely smart enough to stay underground during that time.
I've been lucky enough to have not encountered severely hurt animals in person, I wouldn't know how to help them or what the best course of action would be. Animals are very cute.

>>159858
Last time I saw a firefly around my home was at least a decade ago. They used to show up in droves when I was a kid, wonderful sights. Miss catching em and just seeing the lights in the palm of my hand.