tagged w/ blackbirds
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Biological Hazard in USA on Sunday, 01 January, 2011 at 07:06 (07:06 AM) UTC.
Description
Thousands of dead blackbirds rained down on a town in central Arkansas last New Year’s Eve after revelers set off fireworks that spooked them from their roost, and officials were reporting a similar occurrence Saturday as 2012 approached. Police in Beebe said dozens of blackbirds had fallen dead, prompting officers to ban residents from shooting fireworks Saturday night. It wasn’t immediately clear if fireworks were again to blame, but authorities weren’t taking a chance. Officer John Weeks said the first reports of “birds on the streets” came around 7 p.m. as residents celebrated the year’s end with fireworks in their neighborhoods. “We started shutting down fireworks,” he said. “We’re working on cleaning up the birds now.” He said police were working with animal control workers and others to remove the birds and determine a death count. “We’re not sure if they’re going to continue to fall throughout the night. I can’t tell you,” Weeks said. Scientists say the loud cracks and booms from celebratory fireworks likely sent the birds into such a tizzy that they crashed into homes, cars and each other before plummeting to their deaths last New Year’s Eve. The birds landed on roofs, sidewalks, streets and fields. One struck a woman walking her dog. Another hit a police cruiser.
The blackbird die-off, coupled with tens of thousands of dead drum fish that washed up on the shores of the Arkansas River, flung the state into the national headlines and drew conspiracy theorists and filmmakers to the town about 30 miles northeast of Little Rock that shares Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe’s last name. Some people speculated that the birds had been poisoned; others said their deaths marked the beginning of the apocalypse. “It’s just got to be a pain in my career,” Beebe Police Chief Wayne Ballew said. Prior to this New Year’s Eve, Ballew said he wouldn’t be surprised if people sit out on their front porches in case the winged creatures fall from the sky again. “I guess we could have an annual blackbird watch,” he said with a laugh. “People can just bring their umbrellas, open them up and walk through the neighborhood and hope they don’t get hit.” Charles Moore didn’t plan to have an umbrella at the ready, but said he would have his camera out on New Year’s Eve. Last year, he drifted off to sleep before the ball - and birds - dropped. “When we got up on New Year’s Day and walked out to get the paper, we saw all the carnage out there,” he said. “So we thought we would be on the watch for it this time.”Biological Hazard in USA on Sunday, 01 January, 2011 at 07:06 (07:06 AM) UTC.... more
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It's not the "aflockalyptic" fallout from a secret US weapon lab as some have theorized. But the government acknowledged Thursday that it had a hand in one of a string of mysterious mass bird deaths that have spooked residents in Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, South Dakota, and Kentucky in the last month.
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) took responsibility for hundreds of dead starlings that were found on the ground and frozen in trees in a Yankton, S.D., park on Monday.
The USDA's Wildlife Services Program, which contracts with farmers for bird control, said it used an avicide poison called DRC-1339 to cull a roost of 5,000 birds that were defecating on a farmer's cattle feed across the state line in Nebraska. But officials said the agency had nothing to do with large and dense recent bird kills in Arkansas and Louisiana.
Nevertheless, the USDA's role in the South Dakota bird deaths puts a focus on a little-known government bird-control program that began in the 1960s under the name of Bye Bye Blackbird, which eventually became part of the USDA and was housed in the late '60s at a NASA facility. In 2009, USDA agents euthanized more than 4 million red-winged blackbirds, starlings, cowbirds, and grackles, primarily using pesticides that the government says are not harmful to pets or humans.
In addition to the USDA program, a so-called depredation order from the US Fish and Wildlife Service allows blackbirds, grackles, and starlings to be killed by anyone who says they pose health risks or cause economic damage. Though a permit is needed in some instances, the order is largely intended to cut through red tape for farmers, who often employ private contractors to kill the birds and do not need to report their bird culls to any authority.
"Every winter, there's massive and purposeful kills of these blackbirds," says Greg Butcher, the bird conservation director at the National Audubon Society. "These guys are professionals, and they don't want to advertise their work. They like to work fast, efficiently, and out of sight."
Bird kills turning too zealous?
The depredation order, however, is under review for its impact on the rare rusty blackbird, which roosts with more common species. Ornithologists also suspect that the mass killings may be a factor in declining populations of those species in the US.
While the USDA keeps tabs on the number of birds the program euthanizes, the total death toll isn't known because private contractors operating under the depredation order aren't required to keep count in the case of blackbirds, cowbirds, grackles, and starlings.
"My biggest concern is we don't know how many birds are being killed, and we don't have a sense of how at risk the rusty blackbird is because of depredation events in their range," says Mr. Butcher.
Yankton animal control officer Lisa Brasel told KTIV-TV that she first believed a cold snap had killed some 200 European starlings that were found dead in Riverside Park, reminding some residents of the final scenes of Alfred Hitchcock's thriller, "The Birds."
But then she said she received a call from a USDA official who said the agency had poisoned a roost of starlings 10 miles south of Yankton. Usually such poisonings result in flocks falling directly out of their tree roosts. But in this case, the birds traveled a fair distance before falling. "They were surprised they came to Yankton like they did and died in our park," said Brasel, according to KTIV-TV.
How birds plague farmers
Carol Bannerman, a Wildlife Services spokeswoman, said such kills are carried out at the request of farmers who can prove the birds are a nuisance. The farmers also help pay the cost, according to the agency.
One example of nuisance birds are European starlings, a non-native species, at US dairies, where a flock of 5,000 can eat 200 pounds of feed a day while soiling equipment and dairy cows.
"It's not that we have anything against starlings, but our charge is to help protect agriculture ... and protect property and human health or safety," she says. "And the fact is, in a lot of rural settings, people say, 'It's just birds, what's the problem?' "
Ms. Bannerman added, however, that the agency takes care to notify local public-health and law-enforcement agencies before a scheduled kill, and noted "what went on in Louisiana and Arkansas, that was totally outside of what we're doing. We're quite concerned that people not connect those."
Two mass bird deaths in north Alabama this week are being investigated, with specimens being tested for toxicity. Two other mass bird deaths in Gilbertville and Murray, Ky., earlier this month were not linked to poison, but could have been caused by unseasonably cold weather. The most widely reported recent mass bird deaths – in Louisiana and Arkansas – have been tied to birds en masse flying into buildings and power lines.
Rogue fireworks in Arkansas
In Arkansas, state ornithologist Karen Rowe has reviewed ground radar records that show a 20,000-plus bird roost taking flight at approximately 10:15 p.m. on New Year's Eve, 15 minutes after a series of large booms shook the windows of houses in a nearby subdivision.
This has caused state wildlife officials to pin the blame on a resident who may have gotten a hold of professional-grade fireworks. The dead birds were likely animals that were trying to land in the dark and hit some kind of object after being drawn to toward the artificial light of the neighborhood.
"So far, no one has confessed to letting off the fireworks, but the question remains if anyone would admit to it," says Ms. Rowe. They needn't fear retribution. Despite the number of birds that died, no laws were broken.
Some 5 billion birds die every year across the US, most largely unnoticed. Mass deaths are not uncommon. The US Geological Service's website listed about 90 mass deaths of birds and other wildlife in the last six months of 2010.
"Whether people are noticing it more and pointing it out more this year than in the past, is something that I'd be thinking about," says Bannerman at the USDA.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2011/0120/Bye-Bye-Blackbird-USDA-acknowledges-a-hand-in-one-mass-bird-deathIt's not the "aflockalyptic" fallout from a secret US weapon lab as... more
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Dead birds in Sweden killed by 'external blows'
By the CNN Wires Staff
January 5, 2011 10:11 p.m. EST
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
* A large number of dead birds were found in Swedish city of Falkoping
* Autopsies indicate the birds died from "external blows"
* Dead birds have been found in two U.S. towns over the last week
(CNN) -- A large number of dead birds were found in the city of Falkoping, Sweden, Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, according to a press release on the website of the Swedish National Veterinary Institute.
Autopsies were performed on five of the birds. The institute said they died due to "sudden, hard external blows," according to the press release. They had no signs of infection or other illnesses, and there were no external signs indicating what killed them.
"We have determined that the birds have died from severe internal bleedings caused by external blows," said the Institute's Marianne Elvander.
A similar unusual incident occurred in Arkansas on New Year's Eve. Thousands of red-winged blackbirds and starlings were found dead over a square-mile area in the town of Beebe.
In a separate incident, some 500 red-winged blackbirds, starlings and sparrows were found dead Monday morning in the southern Louisiana community of Labarre.Dead birds in Sweden killed by 'external blows'
By the CNN Wires Staff... more
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Last week, a celebrated and influential Pentagon insider and defense contractor was found dead in New Jersey. The body of John P. Wheeler was discovered as a garbage truck dumped its load at a landfill. The death has been ruled a homicide, and thus far the investigators who are piecing together the case have offered no clear motive or reason for his mysterious murder.
In seemingly unrelated news, there has been a sudden die-off of birds and fish in the southern United States that has a lot of people talking about the apocalypse. First 5,000 blackbirds plummeted to the earth in Arkansas, littering the ground with their corpses and even hitting passers-by. Then a few days later, 500 red-winged blackbirds and starlings were found dead in nearby Louisiana. And 80,000 drum fish died in an Arkansas river close to where the blackbirds died.
No one knows for sure what has caused all these animals to die. Some people feel that the fish deaths were caused by the outbreak of disease, and are thus unrelated to the bird deaths. So then what caused the birds to drop dead so suddenly? Most experts are suggesting massive trauma (as opposed to disease) caused by such things as fireworks displays, collisions with power lines, and possibly even extreme weather.
Naturally, conspiracy theories abound. Some have suggested miniature black holes caused by the particle accelerators at Fermilab. Others think that HAARP, a government-funded atmospheric radio frequency project, is to blame. But the most fascinating theory centers around John Wheeler.
According to an article at WhatDoesItMean, and reprinted at The EU Times in a more readable form, Wheeler may have been killed because he knew too much. He was apparently an expert many times over in the field of chemical and biological weapons. So he certainly would have been familiar with Phosgene, "described as one of the most feared chemical weapons ever used due to its ability to literally cause the lungs and respiratory system to explode."
Apparently, Phosgene taken from Iraq's stockpiles had been stored at a military base in Arkansas for the past few years. Last week it was loaded onto a military transport plane bound for Afghanistan, which subsequently had some sort of malfunction shortly after takeoff, which may have released some of the deadly chemical into the air.
Interestingly, what has been observed so far in the bodies of the dead birds? ABC News reports:
"According to preliminary testing, the trauma was primarily in breast tissue, with blood clots in the body cavity and internal bleeding."
And George Badley, Arkansas state veterinarian, is quoted in the same article as saying:
"Almost every one of them ... had multiple internal hemorrhages which would mean that it was trauma, not a disease process. Their stomachs were empty, which would rule out toxicity from eating some kind of poison grain."
According to the aforementioned WhatDoesItMean article, Wheeler knew exactly what was happening, and determined to keep this dangerous chemical weapon from being used on the battlefield in Afghanistan, marched straight to Washington D.C. to raise hell with the powers-that-be. That got him "marked", and soon after, he was dead.
The latest eyewitness reports to trickle in of Wheeler in the days before his death describe a "disheveled" and disoriented man, stumbling into various businesses and mumbling strange statements. Could he have been drugged? Was it perhaps an attempt at character assassination, so that any information revealed after his death could be conveniently disregarded as the ramblings of a drunk, a junkie, or a lunatic?
What do you think about the theory posited above? Is there a real connection between the animal deaths in the southern US and John Wheeler's murder? Or is it truly just a conspiracy theory dreamed up by people with too much time on their hands? Post a comment at TalkingSkull.com and let us know your opinion - we're actively seeking commenters!
All links to source material can be found at the original article below:
http://talkingskull.com/article/murder-of-john-p-wheeler-connected-to-mass-bird-deathsLast week, a celebrated and influential Pentagon insider and defense contractor was... more
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Brazil, Sweden and New Zealand hit with strange phenomena as speculation rages
The mass bird and fish die-offs that have affected parts of the U.S. over the last week have now gone global, with Sweden, Brazil and New Zealand becoming the latest countries to experience a phenomena that has sparked both scientific intrigue and apocalyptic panic in equal measure.
Following the sudden deaths of thousands of birds that fell over Beebe Arkansas on New Year’s Eve, in addition to 100,000 dead fish found along a 20-mile stretch between the Ozark Dam and Highway 109 Bridge in Franklin County, 500 dead blackbirds and starlings were subsequently discovered in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana.
Large numbers of dead birds were also found in Kentucky around Christmas and more were found in the following days. Earlier this week, tens of thousands of small fish were found washed up in the Chesapeake Bay area. Despite their deaths being blamed on a cold snap, experts are bewildered that the fish didn’t swim to warmer waters as would be their normal response.
In a separate report emailed to us by an Alex Jones Show listener, more dead birds were seen near St. Louis, Missouri.
“I just wanted to let Alex now that I encountered over a hundred blackbirds killed on Christmas Day. This was about 30 miles south of St. Louis, MO near highway 55. The intersection was covered with them,” states the email.
The phenomenon has now gone global, with dead jackdaw birds falling to their deaths across central Sweden shortly before midnight on Tuesday.
In New Zealand, hundreds of dead snapper have washed up on Coromandel beaches. The fish looked fat and healthy, ruling out the weather or starvation as a cause of death.
“People at Little Bay and Waikawau Bay, on the north-east of the peninsula, were stunned when children came out of the sea with armfuls of the fish and within minutes the shore was littered with them,” reports the Sydney Morning Herald.
Meanwhile, in Brazil, 100 tons of fish (sardine, croaker and catfish) have turned up dead off the coast of Parana over the course of the last week.
“Apart from Paranagua, (Edmir Manoel) Ferreira said the dead fish are starting to appear in other coastal towns,” reports Parana Online. “The dead fish are going to Antonina, and Guaraqueçaba. We need an urgent solution to this,” he warned.
The number of different cases of dead birds and fish around the U.S. and globally has been matched by the myriad of different explanations as to the cause of their demise.
The more mundane causes are cited as fireworks, localized hail, power lines, or other temporary phenomena that caused the birds to panic and fly into one another. However, this doesn’t explain why similar events are occurring in different areas of the country or indeed the world and it doesn’t address the issue of mass fish deaths.
As we have documented, the primary suspects should always be governments given the fact that they have routinely engaged in secret testing of biological and electromagnetic weapons that have detrimentally impacted both humans and animals many times in the past.
Others point to the New Madrid fault zone coming to life again as a result of being disturbed by the BP oil spill and threatening the onset of a series of mega-earthquakes which will hit Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi. Why this would be preceded by mass bird deaths is not properly explained.
An example of one of the more esoteric theories behind the die-offs was explained by controversial Pastor James David Manning, who labeled the phenomena a “Global Katrina 2,” and an act of “biological warfare,” voicing his belief that the strange sequence of die-offs was a harbinger of tribulation and the biblical end times.
Web searches for bible prophecies and end time scenarios have exploded as some Christians fear that the mass die-offs mark the beginning of a series of catastrophes.
“Internet keyword searches continue to register off the charts. Queries like “dead fish Bible,” dead birds and fish Revelation,” dead birds and fish die End Times.” were being entered by the million Tuesday,” writes Jim Hagerty, with forum moderators kept busy answering questions about the opening of the Seventh Seal and whether or not a great pestilence will follow soon.
It seems unavoidable that the closer we get to 2012 and the onset of the widely prophesied end times theory, where a series of cataclysmic or transformative events will coincide with the end-date of a 5,125-year-long cycle in the Mayan Long Count calendar, which will subsequently herald the end of the world or the beginning of a new spiritual age, that every bizarre event will be cited as evidence of this coming transformation.
The mass deaths of birds in particular strike a resonant chord within the human psyche for a number of sociological and cultural reasons, not least of which is the fact that they are often seen as an early warning system for harm that could later come to human beings, which of course is where the term “canary in the coal mine” originates.
Although mass die-offs of birds and fish are by no means unprecedented, any increase in their regularity will combine easily with 2012 fever to whip up more frenzy and wide-eyed speculation. This in turn will distract millions of Americans from both real environmental crises that could be connected to the bird deaths, as well as very real political conspiracies and financial plots that continue to spell doomsday for the very existence of the American republic, with no reliance on idle speculation about Mayan calendars or 2012 end times prophecies.
While some theories are rooted in scientific verbiage, others have taken on an altogether more spiritual and apocalyptic context.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/mass-bird-fish-die-offs-go-global-spark-end-times-panic.htmlBrazil, Sweden and New Zealand hit with strange phenomena as speculation rages
The... more
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New Years revelers in a small Arkansas town were enjoying midnight fireworks when they noticed something other than sparks falling from the sky: thousands of dead blackbirds..
http://www.indiareport.com/India-usa-uk-news/ap/National/75485New Years revelers in a small Arkansas town were enjoying midnight fireworks when they... more
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