Dead Birds Fall in Italy, Sweden, U.S. (AR, LA, KY) | Millions of Dead Fish Found in Brazil, New Zealand, U.S. (MD, SC) | Constant Updates | Photos | Videos

Ok, I still haven't been able to read all of these comments, but there is something new showed up on this:

http://www.sabah.com.tr/Yasam/2011/01/10/kus_olumleri_turkiyede

Since there aren't any English resources yet, I had to post this Turkish newspaper headline.

Basically, 10s of birds were found on a highway dead, next to each other, woth no obvious reason whatsoever.

Please excuse me if an answer is already given to this concern of mine on the previous comments:

"When animals in an area have died within a short period of time, contamination and other acceptible factors can count as a plausible reason.

However, when one morning people WAKE UP TO SEE tens or hundreds of animals, for instance birds, scattered inside a small radius in one specific point, doesn't it also make you think about some different type of acute force, such as electro-magnetic shock or some other type of advanced ... 'waves'?"

Anyhow, I will finish reading all these comments by the evening.

Cheers

God didn't cause our mess but his son will be here directly to clean it up. His kingdom has already come and his will is about to be done on Earth as it already is in Heaven.

http://www.newpath4.com/ecologyenvironment2004fuelnegativemultiplier.gif

Cleaning up the mess won't help much if the people who caused it are left to cause it again. Who will be sifted out? Who will Jesus keep around? Not every one of his disciples was an apostle.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/06/birds-dying-in-italy-thou_n_805541.html

Now in Italy.

http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/stories/millions-of-dead-f...

Mother Nature Network...

Millions of dead fish found in Maryland, Brazil and other parts of the world

2 million fish wash up in the Chesapeake Bay as experts puzzle over massive bird and fish deaths around the globe.

By Katherine ButlerThu, Jan 06 2011 at 2:26 PM EST

Dead fish on the beach. Photo: dameetch/Flickr

One of the biggest mysteries of the first days of 2011 has religious and environmental experts flummoxed. In the past few days, fish and birds the world over have been dying in large numbers. Experts have speculated that fireworks in Arkansas killed 3,000 red-winged blackbirds. Meanwhile, hundreds of dead birds were found in nearby Louisiana. Mass fish kills have occurred in Brazil and New Zealand. And as CNN reports, now 2 million fish have turned up dead on the banks of the Chesapeake Bay.

Authorities determined that cold water stress coupled with a too-large population may have killed the 2 million juvenile spot fish that washed up in Maryland. Via CNN, the Maryland Department of the Environment said in a press release, "The affected fish are almost exclusively juvenile spot fish, 3 to 6 inches in length. [A recent survey] showed a very strong population of spot in the bay this year. An increased juvenile population and limited deep water habitat would likely compound the effects of cold water stress."
While dead birds have fallen from the skies in Arkansas, dead fish have also washed up in the state’s rivers. Experts are blaming New Year's Eve fireworks for confusing the Arkansas birds, which died of blunt force trauma after flying into the ground. In Baton Rouge, La., some 500 small birds dropped to their deaths. Experts are waiting on toxicology reports on those birds. Meanwhile, in Sweden, 50 jackdaw birds fell from the sky, and authorities are blaming fireworks or possibly the weather.
Marine life has suffered a similar fate in the new year. Around 25,000 dead velvet swimming crabs washed up on the shores of Great Britain, where extreme cold temperatures may be to blame. A “carpet” of dead snapper was created on a New Zealand beach. As the Examiner reports, 100 tons of dead sardines were found in Brazil over the weekend.
But as Discovery News points out, birds falling from the sky isn’t that unusual. Experts say that mass die-offs are common due to weather, disease or poisonings — or in some cases, fireworks. Further, they are more frequent in animals that travel in groups. We may just notice them more in modern times because humans have encroached on so much once wild territory.
Nonetheless, some are pointing to an “end of days” scenario for the massive die-offs. Anderson Cooper recently asked noted born-again Christian Kirk Cameron if a biblical apocalypse was upon us. As the star of the “Left Behind” movies told Cooper, all is well. According to Cameron, "People love to find codes and signs of future events and see if they can decipher them before anybody else. But birds falling from the sky? That has to do more with pagan mythology; the direction that the birds flew told some of the followers of some of those legends that the gods were either pleased or displeased with them."

http://www2.counton2.com/news/2011/jan/06/thousands-dead-fish-folly-beach-ar-131...

WCBD-TV, South Carolina...

Thousands of dead fish on Folly Beach (Added: January 06, 2011)
It has people asking, "what happened?"

Thousands of dead fish on Folly Beach

Thousands of dead fish washed up on Folly Beach. City officials tell News 2 the first report of the fish came in just before dark on Wednesday.
By Raymond Owens

Published: January 06, 2011

Thousands of dead fish washed up on Folly Beach [South Carolina]. City officials tell News 2 the first report of the fish came in just before dark on Wednesday.

Mark Williams with the Department of Health and Environmental Control assessed the fish. He says he found them in a line from about 3rd Ave. East to 5th Ave. West. Williams says the fish are Menhaden fish, a commons small bait fish.

Williams says this appears to be a temperature-related fish kill. Charleston County Park officials told Williams that the water temperature was about 48-51 degrees. Williams says the fish can die when the water gets too cold.

Williams says the fact that no other species of fish or other sea animal were impacted appears to rule out other causes.

Right now, Williams says there are no health issues related to the fish, and he doesn't expect any in the future from these fish.

Steve Robinson, the Folly Beach Director of Public Works tells News 2 that they hope most of the fish are washed away with the tides. If that does not happen, and a strong odor begins to develop, the City plans to use a special rake to sweep the fish from the beach.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/01/06/maryland.fish.kill/index.html?hpt=T2

2 million fish found dead in Maryland

By the CNN Wire Staff

January 6, 2011 1:18 p.m. EST

Millions of fish found dead in Chesapeake Bay
STORY HIGHLIGHTS

* Officials suspect natural causes in massive fish kill in Chesapeake Bay
* Small spot fish likely succumbed to cold water stress, Maryland officials say
* It's not the first time winter kills of spot fish have been seen in the state

(CNN) -- Authorities in Maryland are investigating the deaths of about 2 million fish in Chesapeake Bay.

"Natural causes appear to be the reason," the Maryland Department of the Environment said in a news release. "Cold water stress exacerbated by a large population of the affected species (juvenile spot fish) appears to be the cause of the kill."

The investigation comes days after the deaths of an estimated 100,000 fish in northwest Arkansas. Authorities suspect disease was to blame there, a state spokesman said.

In Maryland, preliminary tests showed water quality to be acceptable, officials said.

"The affected fish are almost exclusively juvenile spot fish, 3 to 6 inches in length," the Maryland department said. A recent survey "showed a very strong population of spot in the bay this year. An increased juvenile population and limited deep water habitat would likely compound the effects of cold water stress."

Large winter kills of spot fish have occurred at least twice before in the state, in 1976 and 1980, the department said.

Google Map of mass animal deaths at the link . . .

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=...

I'm thinking HAARP

I posted this same story on another thread yesterday evening.
http://i.huffpost.com/gen/234148/thumbs/s-SWEDEN-DEAD-BIRDS-large.jpg
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/05/dead-birds-fall-from-sky-_n_804591.html...=1179325,b=facebook

Dead Birds Fall From Sky In Sweden, Millions Of Dead Fish Found In Maryland, Brazil, New Zealand.
MILLIONS OF FISH ARE NOW BEING FOUND DEAD WORLDWIDE.
======================================================
Millions of dead fish surfaced in Maryland's Chesapeake Bay in the U.S., Tuesday, while similar unexplained mass fish deaths occurred across the world in Brazil and New Zealand. On Wednesday, 50 birds were found dead on a street in Sweden. The news come after recents reports of mysterious massive bird and fish deaths days prior in Arkansas and Louisiana.

The Baltimore Sun reports that an estimated 2 million fish were found dead in the Chesapeake Bay, mostly adult spot with some juvenile croakers in the mix, as well. Maryland Department of the Environment spokesperson Dawn Stoltzfus says "cold-water stress" is believed to be the culprit. She told The Sun that similar large winter fish deaths were documented in 1976 and 1980.

ParanaOnline reports that 100 tons of sardines, croaker and catfish have washed up in Brazilian fishing towns since last Thursday. The cause of the deaths is unknown, with an imbalance in the environment, chemical pollution, or accidental release from a fishing boat all suggested by local officials.

In New Zealand, hundreds of dead snapper fish washed up on Coromandel Peninsula beaches, many found with their eyes missing, The New Zealand Herald reports. A Department of Conservation official allegedly claims the fish were starving due to weather conditions.

While all three events are likely unrelated, they come after recent reports of mysterious dead birds falling from the sky in both Arkansas and Louisiana. Thousands of dead birds were found in Beebe, Arkansas on New Year's Eve, and a few days later, around 500 of the same species were found 300 miles south in Louisiana. A Kentucky woman also reported finding dozens of dead birds scattered around her home. In the days prior to New Year's, nearly 100,000 fish surfaced in an Arkansas river 100 miles west of Beebe. Officials are now saying that fireworks likely caused the Arkansas bird deaths, and power lines may be to blame for the death of the birds in Louisiana.

Some remain skeptical of the explanations. Dan Cristol, a biology professor and co-founder of the Institute for Integrative Bird Behavior Studies at the College of William & Mary, told the AP that he was hesitant to believe fireworks were to blame unless "somebody blew something into the roost, literally blowing the birds into the sky."

Wednesday, officials in Sweden reported the finding of 50 dead birds on a street, suggesting that cold weather or fireworks were the likely culprit.

Bird deaths and fish kills at smaller numbers aren't all that uncommon, though the size and proximity of some of the recent events have led people to allege their relation, though officials deny the frequency of these wildlife deaths as being anything other than coincidence.

In August of 2010, tens of thousands of dead fish were reported washing ashore in two separate occasions, 200 miles apart on the East Coast.

CLICK HERE to let us know what you think caused the mass bird deaths. While many of the animals are undergoing tests that could take weeks to yield comprehensive results, some officials attest that the true cause behind these mysterious deaths may never fully be known.
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No one really knows exactly what is causing the death of fish and fowl apparently all over the planet now, and until we get to the exact nature of the problem, we all have the right to speculate. Our government has shown us time and time again that they cannot be trust. A couple of days ago, some of you criticized others that refuse to accept the "sound killed the birds" version that our government was feeding to us. Well, so much for the sound theory.

You cannot tell anyone that what their belief of what is killing fowl and fish worldwide is wrong, if you don't know yourself. Let's just hope that we all find out the truth sometime in the very near future, because this is beginning to get real ugly.

http://www.thelocal.se/31278/20110106/

The Local...

'External force' behind Swedish bird death

Published: 6 Jan 11 10:11 CET | Double click on a word to get a translation
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/31278/20110106/
Share19

The cause of death of the jackdaws found dead on the streets of Falköping, in central Sweden, was external force, not infection or disease, showed the autopsy completed on Wednesday.

* Swedish birds 'scared to death': veterinarian (5 Jan 11)

Five of the dead birds were autopsied by the National Veterinary Institute, (Statens veterinärmedicinska anstalt, SVA) and results showed that the birds had died of acute blunt force.

According to Marianne Elvander, zoologist at SVA, the jackdaws were killed by severe internal bleeding. None of the birds showed sign of infection or illness.

"Our assessment is that they weren't carrying any contagious disease, but figuring out exactly what did kill them, other than being some sort of external force, is rather outside our area," said Olov Andersson, SVA's information officer, to TT news agency.

"What comes to mind is that they may have flown up, and been hit, or something of the sort," he speculated, a theory defended by most experts.

The birds may have been frightened by something in the middle of the night, flown about blindly, and died in collisions with different objects in the dark.

"Jackdaws overnight in trees in huge flocks. If something scares them, hundreds of birds can take to the skies as one," Anders Wirdheim of the Swedish Ornithological Society (Sveriges ornitologiska förening, SOF) told TT.

The jackdaws were discovered on a street in Falköping, just before midnight on the night between Tuesday and Wednesday. In total, between 50 and 100 dead birds were found.

Similar events have recently been reported from at least two US locations. A few days ago, 5000 birds were found dead in a town in Arkansas, and some days later a similar mass death occurred in Louisiana, as 500 birds plummeted from the sky.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/01/05/arkansas.bird.mystery/index.html?hpt=Sbin

Experts: Loud noise sent 5,000 Arkansas birds flying to their deaths

By Tristan Smith and Michael Martinez, CNN
January 5, 2011 8:23 p.m. EST

Red-winged blackbirds from Arkansas were studied at the University of Georgia.

(CNN) -- Experts believe a loud noise or event was behind the mass death of as many as 5,000 red-winged blackbirds and starlings in Arkansas on New Year's Eve, when they all flew into buildings at night, veterinarian Dr. John Fischer said Wednesday.

Fischer, of the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study in Athens, Georgia, said the bang startled very large roosts in a square-mile area in Beebe, Arkansas, 40 miles northeast of Little Rock.

Agreeing with this finding later Wednesday was the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wisconsin, whose preliminary test results showed that the red-winged blackbirds died from blunt-force trauma. The report supported preliminary findings from the Arkansas Livestock and Poultry Commission released Monday.

Necropsies on the carcasses at the Wisconsin lab revealed internal hemorrhaging, according to a Arkansas Game and Fish Commission statement. Tests showed no pesticides, and results are pending for additional chemical toxins and infectious diseases, authorities said.

Unusually loud noises, reported shortly before the birds began to fall, caused the birds to flush from a roost, and New Year's Eve fireworks in the area may have forced the birds to fly at a lower altitude than normal, causing them to hit houses, vehicles and trees, the commission's statement said. Blackbirds have poor night vision and typically don't fly at night.

"At this stage of the game, I don't see anything that will alarm me or precipitate alarming the public at all," Fischer told CNN.

Karen Rowe, an ornithologist for the game and fish commission, said this week such incidents are not that unusual and often are caused by a lightning strike or high-altitude hail. A strong storm system moved through the state earlier in the day Friday.

Officials have also speculated that fireworks shot by New Year's revelers in the area might have startled the birds.

In a separate incident 450 miles south of Beebe, some 500 red-winged blackbirds, starlings and sparrows were found dead Monday morning on streets in the southern Louisiana community of Labarre.

Fischer told CNN Wednesday that X-rays of those birds found hemorrhaging consistent with traumatic death, and the birds apparently flew into stationary objects and power lines.

Michael Seymour, a Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries ornithologist, said he would not relate what happened to Arkansas to what happened in Louisiana.

"On the outside, it's obviously pretty easy to link them together and find the pattern there, but as of now, there is absolutely no linking besides some of the species involved," he said.

Seymour said these preliminary results tend to point toward some sort of collision or traumatic event as opposed to a virus or bacterium.

"We obviously have to wait on final results," he said. "We're still waiting on the toxicology reports, which could take weeks."

Seymour said there is a "pretty good chance" the bird hit power lines.

"It's the No. 2 killer in the U.S.," Seymour said.

CNN's Vivian Kuo contributed to this report.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Two-Million-Fish-Found-Dead-In-Chesa...

Two Million Fish Found Dead In Maryland

Sky News...

6:23pm UK, Wednesday January 05, 2011

Hannah Thomas-Peter, Sky News Online

Around two million fish have died in the Chesapeake Bay area in Maryland, just days after two similar incidents elsewhere in the US baffled scientists.

Chesapeake Bay

The dead fish were found in Chesapeake Bay

Officials are now trying to find out what happened.

Maryland Department of the Environment spokeswoman Dawn Stoltzfus told Sky News Online that at the moment it does not look like pollution is to blame.

She said: "The dead fish are mainly juvenile spot fish, and they can't survive very cold water temperatures. Typically they should have left the bay by now.

"Our working theory, that looks pretty strong, is that it's been caused by cold water stress."

This mass "fish kill", as it is called, happened after water temperatures plunged to near record lows in the area in late December, but scientists have yet to prove conclusively that this was the cause.

Elsewhere in the US, large numbers of sudden bird and fish deaths have perplexed biologists.

Just days ago, an estimated 500 small birds, mostly blackbirds, fell out of the sky in Louisiana.

On New Year's Eve in Arkansas, thousands of the same species were found, followed by the discovery of around 100,000 dead fish in a river about a hundred miles away.

Officials think that power lines may be to blame for the Louisiana deaths, and fireworks or lightning could have been responsible for what happened in Arkansas.

The events are not being linked, but similar scenarios across the world are adding to the mystery.

Officials reported around 50 jackdaws had been found dead on a street in Sweden, and other unexplained mass fish deaths have occurred recently in Brazil and New Zealand.

Large fish kills have happened before in Chesapeake Bay, most notably in 1976 and 1980. Officials acknowledged that the most recent incident is the biggest since thos

http://www.thejournal.ie/up-to-2m-dead-fish-reported-on-us-coast-2011-01/

The Journal.IE.......

Up to 2m dead fish reported on US coast
06/01/11, 9:44 am

File photo of the New Point lighthouse on Chesapeake Bay.
Image: AP Photo/Ron Edmonds

i

REPORTS OF THE MASS DEATHS of animals keep coming: an estimated 2 mllion dead fish have washed up on the shores of Chesapeake Bay in the US.

This latest discovery follows reports of thousands of blackbirds and starlings falling dead from the sky in Arkansas last weekend, and 500 dead birds falling over a short stretch of highway in Louisiana, some 300 miles away.

Yesterday, the Local reported that between 50 and 100 birds were discovered dead on a street in Falkoping, Sweden.

One vet speculated that the birds landed on the road after being frighted by New Year’s fireworks, and were then run over.

Tests are still being run on the birds in the US to determine the cause of death. Early examinations showed they had suffered serious internal injuries and speculation over the source of those injuries has ranged from fireworks forcing the birds to fly low and strike objects, to an avian illness.

Tens of thousands of dead fish were also discovered at the weekend in Arkansas, but experts in the US have already said they do not believe the two events are related and that the fish, which were of one species, were likely to have died as a result of an infection.

The Baltimore Sun reports that state officials suspect cold temperatures may have killed the fish discovered at Chesapeake Bay. Water quality in the bay does not appear to be a problem, according to the Maryland Department of the Environment, but the average air temperature in the area was more than four degrees lower than normal last month.

In Britain, the cold weather and low sea temperatures are thought to have killed thousands of Velvet crabs, the Daily Mail reported yesterday.

Over 40,000 crabs and a smaller quantity of whelks, sponges and anemones were found washed up along the Kent coast. Like Ireland, Britain has been experiencing a much colder winter than usual this year, with severe icy spells and snow.

http://www.newsreview.com/chico/content?oid=1900962

NewsReview...

It’s raining… birds?
Blackbird blizzard

This article was published on 01.06.11.

Residents of Beebe, Ark., had a Hitchcock-creepy start to 2011.

On Dec. 31, just 30 minutes before midnight, thousands of red-winged blackbirds began to fall from the sky in the small town, located about 40 miles northeast of Little Rock. By Saturday morning, an estimated 3,000 carcasses littered a one-mile area. No dead birds were found outside the area.

Scientists are scratching their heads over what caused the deaths. Most birds showed trauma, indicating that a hail storm or lightening could have hit the flock. Some scientists have suggested the birds died from stress caused by fireworks.

Investigators ruled out disease or poisoning after no dead birds were found at a nearby wooded roosting area.

In an unrelated mystery, nearly 1,000 drum fish have washed up along the Arkansas River, located 100 miles from Beebe. Scientists have pointed to disease

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-animal-apocalypse-20110106,...

Los Angeles Times...

Deaths of birds and fish en masse stir end-times theories
Bizarre reports of washed-up fish and downed birds have many people scratching their heads, and jumping to conclusions.

Dead fish in Maryland

Dead spot and croaker fill a shoreline in Stevensville, Md. Millions of the fish are believed to have died in Chesapeake Bay. Scientists blame the frigid water

By Jill Rosen

January 6, 2011

Reporting from Baltimore —

When the term "dead fish" became a top Google search Wednesday, soaring past the likes of Lindsay Lohan and leaving Justin Bieber in its scaly wake, it looked as if the end were near.

That's what everyone was saying, anyway.

After millions of tiny fish went belly up in Chesapeake Bay this week, much of the populace immediately dismissed the official scientific explanation (the water was just too darn cold). What made more sense, they reasoned?

The approaching apocalypse. Of course.

The troubling fish kill, coming as it did on top of reports of birds in Arkansas and Louisiana falling from the sky en masse, had some scratching their heads. And jumping to conclusions.

"Is American Wildlife Cursed?" AOL asked in a headline over a story that began, "Maybe it's time to start storing those emergency food rations." Conspiracy theories raged on blogs, Facebook and Twitter. People sent countless panicky tweets, including:

• "So they['re] blaming dead birds on loud noises and dead fish on the water being too cold.... Are we supposed to believe that?!?"

•"Between all these dead birds and fish around the USA, I think 2012 may be it after all, drink up gang."

Some were more to the point:

•"WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!"

Though officials in Maryland immediately explained what caused the deaths of millions of spot and croaker, people weren't willing to buy "cold-water stress" — not with so much other environmental upheaval underway.

First, in Arkansas, 83,000 dead drum fish washed up along the Arkansas River. Then, on New Year's Day over the small town of Beebe, about 100 miles from the dead fish, as many as 5,000 red-winged blackbirds fell to the ground, dead.

Alfred Hitchcock might have envied the austere shots of horror captured on film — all those still birds lying on highways, sidewalks and the brown grass of winter lawns. The cause of their deaths only deepened people's unease: blunt-force trauma.

Blunt-force trauma? What?

Then, a couple of days later in Louisiana, hundreds more birds — blackbirds, starlings, brown-headed cowbirds and grackles — expired in a similarly bizarre fashion.

Theories about how that could happen, not once but twice, flew faster than feathers. Hail. Lightning. Power lines. New Year's Eve fireworks.

George Washington University religion professor Paul Duff, who has studied the Book of Revelation and the apocalypse, didn't seem particularly alarmed about all this when reached for comment Wednesday. In fact, he wasn't even gathering food rations; he was catching up on work in his office.

"There has not been a generation that has not cried, 'The end is near,' " he said.

Duff said the disturbing nature of the wildlife deaths, combined with the unanswered questions behind some of them, create the perfect climate for a doomsday plot.

Even if all the poor birds and rotting fish portend nothing in the end, Duff has little doubt that the apocalyptically inclined will not drop their case.

"When they expect [doomsday] to come and it doesn't, they don't give up that belief," he said. "They'll just recalculate. And push [the date] forward again."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/04/us/04beebe.html?scp=4&sq=Birds&st=cse

The New York Times...

January 3, 2011
For Arkansas Blackbirds, the New Year Never Came

By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON

Times Square had the ball drop, and Brasstown, N.C., had its descending possum. But no place had a New Year’s Eve as unusual, or freakishly disturbing, as Beebe, Ark.

Around 11 that night, thousands of red-winged blackbirds began falling out of the sky over this small city about 35 miles northeast of Little Rock. They landed on roofs, roads, front lawns and backyards, turning the ground nearly black and terrifying anyone who happened to be outside.

“One of them almost hit my best friend in the head,” said Christy Stephens, who was standing outside among the smoking crowd at a party. “We went inside after that.”

The cause is still being determined, but preliminary lab results from the Arkansas Livestock and Poultry Commission revealed “acute physical trauma” in samples of the dead birds. There were no indications of disease, though tests were still being done for the presence of toxic chemicals.

Karen Rowe, the bird conservation program coordinator for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, said the prevailing theory was that the birds had been startled by New Year’s Eve fireworks and suddenly dispersed, flying low enough to run into chimneys, houses and trees. Pyrotechnics are used to scatter blackbirds for bird control, though only during the day, given the birds’ poor vision.

Beebe (pronounced BE-be) is a congregating spot for blackbirds, and one witness told Ms. Rowe that he saw the birds roosting earlier in the day and heard them again at night just after the fireworks started.

“It was the right mix of things happening in a perfect time sequence,” Ms. Rowe said.

At most recent count, up to 5,000 birds fell on the city. Sixty five samples were sent to labs, one of which is at the Livestock and Poultry Commission and the other in Madison, Wis.

Keith Stephens, a spokesman for the commission, said he was not aware of a case this large. “About nine years ago we had some ducks,” he said, “but that was only a couple of dozen.”

The town contacted an environmental cleanup firm, which by Monday afternoon had picked up nearly all the birds, some of which were bagged and left at the end of driveways by residents.

“It just looked as if it had rained birds,” said Tracy Lightfoot, a member of the City Council, declining to speculate on the reason. “There’s lots of theories running around. I have no idea. I just don’t have a clue.”

State scientists believe one thing to be almost certain: that the bird deaths were not related to the roughly 85,000 fish that died a few days before near Ozark, in the western part of the state, the biggest fish kill in Arkansas that anyone can remember. They were spotted by anglers along the Arkansas River last week and reported to the Game and Fish Commission, which spent New Year’s Eve measuring and counting dead fish that had spread out for nearly 20 miles.

In that case, the victims were almost all drum, and almost all younger ones. That suggests the culprit was disease, said Mark Oliver, the chief of fisheries for the commission. He said fish kills were not uncommon, especially in winter when the fish are packed more closely, but he did not recall one of this size.

Meanwhile roughly 500 dead birds were found on Monday outside New Roads, La. Those birds were much more varied, with starlings and grackle in addition to blackbirds, and a few samples picked up by James LaCour, a wildlife veterinarian with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, did not show any signs of trauma, he said.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40921795/ns/us_news-environment/

The plot thickens? Dead birds found in Sweden, Kentucky
Veterinarian refuses to speculate on cause of death but is investigating

updated 1/5/2011 5:37:31 PM ET 2011-01-05T22:37:31

It isn't easy being a bird.

First, New Year's Eve fireworks were blamed in central Arkansas for making thousands of blackbirds confused, crashing into homes, cars and each other. Then 300 miles to the south in Louisiana, power lines likely killed about 450 birds, littering a highway near Baton Rouge.

On Wednesday, Kentucky wildlife officials said several hundred grackles, red wing blackbirds, robins and starlings were found dead last week in the western part of the state.

It's almost certainly a coincidence the events happened within days of each other, Louisiana's state wildlife veterinarian Jim LaCour said Tuesday. "I haven't found anything to link the two at this point."

To add to the mystery, 50-100 jackdaws, a bird species in the crow family, fell dead in central Sweden late Tuesday night, English-language Swedish news website The Local reported Wednesday.

"We do not know what the cause is," Skovde police commander Tomas Ahlgren said. The birds fell in the city of Falkoping, which is southeast of Skovde.

Mass bird deaths aren't uncommon. The U.S. Geological Service's website listed about 90 mass deaths of birds and other wildlife from June through Dec. 12.

There were five deaths of at least 1,000 birds, with the largest near Houston, Minnesota, where parasite infestations killed about 4,000 water birds between Sept. 6 and Nov. 26.

Mystery remains
In Louisiana, the birds died sometime late Sunday or early Monday in the rural Pointe Coupee Parish community of Labarre, about 30 miles northwest of Baton Rouge.

The birds — a mixed flock of red-winged blackbirds, brown-headed cowbirds, grackles and starlings — may have hit a power line or vehicles in the dark, LaCour said. Two dozen of them had head, neck, beak or back injuries.
Video: Second deluge of dead birds falls in Southeast (on this page)

About 50 dead birds were near a power line 30 or 40 feet from Louisiana Highway 1. About a quarter-mile away, a second group of 400 or more stretched from the power line and across the highway, he said.

Dan Cristol, a biology professor and co-founder of the Institute for Integrative Bird Behavior Studies at the College of William & Mary, said the Louisiana birds may have been ill or startled from their roost, then hit the power line.

"They don't hit a power line for no reason," he said.

In Beebe, New Year's revelers spent the holiday weekend cleaning up dead red-winged blackbirds.

Some speculated that bad weather was to blame. Others said one confused bird could have led the group in a fatal plunge. A few spooked schoolkids guessed the birds committed mass suicide.
Video: Ark. birds died in mid-air, says official (on this page)

Officials acknowledged, though, they may never know exactly what caused the large number of deaths.

Cristol was skeptical of the fireworks theory, unless "somebody blew something into the roost, literally blowing the birds into the sky."

Wildlife officials in both Arkansas and Louisiana sent carcasses to researchers at the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis. and the University of Georgia.

LaCour said he didn't expect results for at least two or three weeks.

E. coli?
In 1999, several thousand grackles fell from the sky and staggered about before dying in north Louisiana. It took five months to get the diagnosis: an E. coli infection of the air sacs in their skulls.

"I hope things go faster than that," said Paul Slota, branch chief for the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wisconsin. He said necropsies of the Arkansas birds began Tuesday afternoon.

"If it isn't strictly trauma, it may take more time to get results back," he said. "When nothing shows up, you run the tests longer and let it incubate longer."

The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission is also trying to determine what caused the deaths of up to 100,000 fish over a 20-mile stretch of the Arkansas River near a dam in Ozark, 125 miles west of Beebe. The fish were discovered on Dec. 30.

The commission expects results on the fish tests in probably a month. Disease may be the culprit, since almost all the fish were one species — bottom-feeding drum, the commission said.

Keith Stephens, a commission spokesman, said the events do not appear to be related. Both that section of the river and the air at the site of the bird deaths were tested for toxins, Stephens said.

As for the dead birds in Sweden, a county veterinarian would not speculate on the cause of their death, The Local reported. He was traveling to the site Wednesday to investigate.

"We will work quietly and methodically," he said.

Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources spokesman Mark Marraccini says someone called police about the discovery in Kentucky, and they alerted state officials.

Marraccini says tests performed on the birds ruled out diseases or poisons. He said the deaths could have been caused by weather or another natural event.

The Associated Press and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.

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