massive bird decimation

[gunsmith]

http://www.todaysthv.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=136195&catid=2

thousands of birds suddenly drop out of the sky dead and dieing, talibird attack? Space cats?

[Ben]

I read that earlier today. I find a few of their conclusions interesting.

The suggestion that the birds died from stress or trauma due to fireworks? I've hunted around thousands and thousands of birds, with hunters firing every which way, and I've never seen a bird fall out of the sky from non-lead stress. Not that a few here and there wouldn't be out of the question, but two thousand in a short time span?

Also the (so far) ruling out of poison. Poison, either in food or water the flock was all eating and drinking around the same time, or flying through some noxious gas or pollutant, seems to me the most plausible reason for so many birds to be affected at basically the same time. I would guess lighting could have done it too.

[Ron]

There have been those who suggest the reason airplanes fall out of the sky in the Bermuda Triangle and other such places is due to methane or CO2 being released from under the ocean.

Flying through a cloud of gas lighter than air = no lift.

Anyone else heard this hypothesis?

Could the same thing happen over land?

[bedlamite]

I would guess lighting could have done it too.

I checked the weather. They had rain on the 29th, cloudy through the 31st, sunny on the 1st. Lightning is not likely.

[geronimotwo]

my wife used to watch that show "fast-forward".  maybe this is a publicity stunt to get them back on the air!

[Lee]

It is Arkansas...I'd guess hundreds of shotguns going off at once to celebrate the New Year 

Seriously though, I wonder if the birds might have eaten the dead fish that died off 100 miles from there.  The fish probably died from something running off from a Chicken farm or something weird like that.

[kgbsquirrel]

Any chance this occurred near a high power RF emitter? I personally know of a few particular emitters that will kill birds if they fly through the beam path.

[RoadKingLarry]

I checked the weather. They had rain on the 29th, cloudy through the 31st, sunny on the 1st. Lightning is not likely.

Actually, we had some pretty nasty storms throughthe region the morning of the 31st. 7 dead from tornados a little further North. Much rain, hail and lightening in the wee hours of the morning.
http://www.examiner.com/natural-disasters-in-national/death-toll-from-new-year-s-eve-tornado-outbreak-hits-seven

[230RN]

Maybe a flock of 'em got sucked up by an updraft/tornado/babytornado and got mostly killed or knocked out in the upper reaches of the atmosphere --by cold or lack of O2.  Then they just dropped down.  Seems to me that they might stay up in the clouds for quite a while, like soaring in thermals, and like hailstones, which make several trips up and down in the clouds and can get pretty big.

Could be the same for the fish --fish and other aquatics have been known to be sucked up by waterspouts, but don't ask me to document that.

Either that, or an out-standing ten year old with an out-standing BB gun and an out-standing jacklight dood da doity deed.

Terry, 230RN

[vaskidmark]

Overheard MSM on the tee-wee (thanks, Tam!) saying something connecting the dead fish to the dead birds.

At least that's better than yesterday's allusion to The Birds - nobody semed to remember that those birds were very much alive. [/sinister laugh]

stay safe.

[sanglant]

God will not be ignored. Repent brothers, the end is nigh.



eh, someone had to.

[never_retreat]

First the birds now the fish. Whats going on down there?
http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/01/02/arkansas.fish.kill/index.html?hpt=T2

[Perd Hapley]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Happening_%282008_film%29

[MechAg94]

There have been those who suggest the reason airplanes fall out of the sky in the Bermuda Triangle and other such places is due to methane or CO2 being released from under the ocean.

Flying through a cloud of gas lighter than air = no lift.

Anyone else heard this hypothesis?

Could the same thing happen over land?

I've seen that before also.  I believe they mentioned that is didn't take a great deal of methane to choke the engines also.

I think I also saw a test on TV where they simulated a ship having a big CO2/Methane bubble surface underneath them.  The ship sank like a rock. 

[vaskidmark]

http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/latest/112843019.html

LABARRE — Hundreds of dead and dying birds littered a quarter-mile stretch of highway in Pointe Coupee Parish on Monday as motorists drove over and around them.

State biologists are trying to determine what led to the deaths of the estimated 500 red-winged blackbirds and starlings on La. 1 just down the road from Pointe Coupee Central High School.

The discovery of the dead birds — some of which were lying face down, clumped in groups, while others were face up with their wings outstretched and rigid legs pointing upward — comes just three days after more than 3,000 blackbirds rained down from the sky in Beebe, Ark.

Necropsies performed Monday on the birds in Arkansas showed the birds suffered internal injuries that formed blood clots leading to their deaths, The Associated Press reported.

In Louisiana, biologists with the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries spent part of the day Monday scooping up some of the birds in Pointe Coupee Parish to be sent for testing at labs in Georgia and Wisconsin.

The remaining carcasses were still on the roadway, on the shoulder and in drainage ditches Monday afternoon as some motorists sped past, flattening birds lying in the roadway, while other drivers slowed down to gawk.

It's expanding, whatever it is.

stay safe.

[Scout26]

Bigfoot and his slingshot.....

[charby]

I like red winged blackbirds one of my favorite fishing partners when I fish small ponds.

I'm wondering if they got caught up in a wall cloud collapse or something that knocked them out of the sky.

[Harold Tuttle]

[geronimotwo]

sorry, missile contrails are for the west coast conspiricy zone only.

[HankB]

Any chance this occurred near a high power RF emitter? I personally know of a few particular emitters that will kill birds if they fly through the beam path.

I've heard of flocks of bird being knocked down by missle warning radars up in Canada or Alaska. For that matter, I remember reading in Victor Belenko's book that the Soviet Mig-25 radar was so powerful that it was a capital offense for a pilot to activate it on the ground - it could kill a small animal at quite some distance, and injure ground crew seriously up close. So maybe some jet jockey was behind it . . .

[Harold Tuttle]

[Ben]

They continue to say fireworks was the cause. I'm finding that very hard to believe, at least for that great a number of birds. That had to be a hell of a fireworks show.

A localized atmospheric event of some kind that wore them out, like a wind vortex or something, seems much more plausible.

[AJ Dual]

Indeed, not to say that "something" isn't going on, but I wonder how many dead fish and birds we'd find if we were at ZOMG-Defcon1 all the time and actively LOOKING for them.

Correlation not equaling causation, and all that.

Plus, all the birds going nuts and migrating at odd times, or going nuts and flying into windows etc. is a pretty standard trope for the opening sequence/foreshadowing of disaster movies over the past decade or so. So it's kind of a mental fixture in many people's minds, and subject to having greater significance than the event really has being assigned in people's minds.  

And the fireworks/thunder thing is plausible to me, as much as anything else. My mother and uncles used to amuse themselves by hypnotizing the chickens on the family farm in the 1950's. They'd take a piece of feed pinched in their fingers and slowly move it back and forth until the bird was out of it, and they could even lay the bird on it's back in their hands. They'd then leave it there, and it would take 10-15 minutes and suddenly come to.

One day they did this, and three days later the chickens they'd hypnotized all died. Grandpa was pretty pissed.

Also thinking about how dolphins/whales can get confused and beach themselves etc. too.

[Ben]

Thunder, with accompanying lightning, I can see, but fireworks, for that many birds, baffles me. I'm not a biology guy, so maybe I'm just not getting the "why" of it (or else all the fireworks shows I've seen have been really lame).

[Harold Tuttle]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyKFY04FTjw