Animal Living Standards

Strangely enough, the model proposed by Malthus, that people are doomed to poverty because higher living standards brings higher reproduction rates, turned out to be true for animals and not people. Wild animals have to spend almost all their waking hours trying to stay alive. This fact was confirmed for me when I watched the discovery channel series "planet earth" (recommended). The only exceptions to this seem to be when people get involved. For instance, my golden retriever doesn't have to work all that hard to stay alive. The new book In The Company Of Crows and Ravens, takes a look at some of the survivorship patterns in birds. Credit to the folks at Marginal Revolution.