UNDIAGNOSED DIE- OFF, AVIAN - USA: (ARKANSAS), REQUEST FOR INFORMATION
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[1]
Date: Mon 3 Jan 2011
Source: CBS News, Associated Press (AP) report [edited] <http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/01/03/national/main7208349.shtml>
Wildlife experts are trying to solve a mystery that evoked images of the apocalypse: Why did more than 3000 red-winged blackbirds tumble from the Arkansas sky shortly before midnight on New Year's Eve [31 Dec 2010]?
Scientists are investigating whether bad weather, fireworks, or poison might have forced the birds out of the sky, or if a disoriented bird simply led the flock into the ground.
"We have a lot more questions," said Karen Rowe, an ornithologist with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. She said there are documented cases of birds becoming confused and plunging to earth.
Separately, some 100 000 fish died last week in the Arkansas River in the northwestern section of the state, the New York Daily News reports. The drum fish were discovered Thursday [30 Dec 2010] across more than 20 miles [32 km] of the river, fish and game officials announced Sunday [2 Jan 2011]. Officials said they don't know what killed the fish, but that contaminated water isn't likely to be the cause because only one species was affected. The fish kill took place only 125 miles [200 km] from the site of the mysterious falling birds.
Residents of the small town of Beebe, northeast of Little Rock, awoke Saturday [1 Jan 2011] to find thousands of dead blackbirds littering a 1.5-square-mile [4 sq km] area. The birds inexplicably dropped dead, landing on homes, cars, and lawns. Cleanup crews wore protective suits, gas masks, and rubber gloves as they spent the holiday weekend [1-2 Jan 2011] gathering the carcasses.
The director of Cornell University's ornithology lab in Ithaca, New York, said the most likely suspect is violent weather. It's probable that thousands of birds were asleep, roosting in a single tree, when a "washing machine-type thunderstorm" sucked them up into the air, disoriented them, and even fatally soaked and chilled them.
"Bad weather can occasionally catch flocks off guard, blow them off a roost, and they get hurled up suddenly into this thundercloud," lab director John Fitzpatrick said.
Kevin McGowan, another Cornell ornithologist, called the incident "very unusual" and "almost unprecedented" in an interview with CBS News. McGowan said that the birds don't normally fly at night and can't see well in the dark.
"Something happened; they should have been asleep in their roost," he said. "Wherever they were, they ran into something."
McGowan doubted the lightning explanation but said that fireworks were plausible. He said similar events aren't seen on the Fourth of July because the birds are mating at that time of year and not found in large congregations.
Rough weather had hit the state earlier Friday [31 Dec 2010], but the worst of it was already well east of Beebe by the time the birds started falling, said Chris Buonanno, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in North Little Rock.
If weather was the cause, the birds could have died in several ways, Fitzpatrick said. They could easily become disoriented -- with no lights to tell them up and down -- and smack into the ground. Or they could have died from exposure.
The birds' feathers keep them at a toasty 103 deg F [39.4 deg C], but "once that coat gets unnaturally wet, it's only a matter of minutes before they're done for," Fitzpatrick said.
Regardless of how they died, the birds will not be missed. Large blackbird [this article states blackbirds, not red-winged blackbirds.
- Mod.TG] roosts like one at Beebe can have thousands of birds that leave ankle- to knee-deep piles of droppings in places.
Nearly a decade ago, state wildlife officials fired blanks from shotguns and cannons to move a roost of thousands of blackbirds from Beebe. In recent years, many of the migratory birds returned.
Red-winged blackbirds [blackbirds and red-winged blackbirds are different and have different scientific names. - Mod.TG] are among North America's most abundant birds, with somewhere between 100 million and 200 million nationwide, Fitzpatrick said. Rowe put the number of dead in Beebe at "easily 3000."
Bird carcasses were shipped to the Arkansas Livestock and Poultry Commission and the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wisconsin. Researchers in Georgia also asked for a set of the dead birds. Test results could be back in a week.
Rowe said many of the birds suffered injuries from striking the ground, but it was not clear whether they were alive when they hit. A few grackles and a couple of starlings were also among the dead.
Those species roost with blackbirds, particularly in winter.
Tens of thousands of blackbirds can roost in a single tree. And they do not see well at night, when they usually sleep, Fitzpatrick said.
Earlier Friday [31 Dec 2010], a tornado killed 3 people in Cincinnati, Arkansas, about 150 miles [240 km] away. Then a couple hours before the birds died, thunderstorms also passed through parts of central Arkansas. Lightning could have killed the birds directly or startled them to the point that they became confused. Hail also has been known to knock birds from the sky.
In 2001, lightning killed about 20 mallards at Hot Springs, and a flock of dead pelicans was found in the woods about 10 years ago, Rowe said. Lab tests showed that they, too, had been hit by lighting.
Back in 1973, hail knocked birds from the sky at Stuttgart, Arkansas, on the day before hunting season. Some of the birds were caught in a violent storm's updrafts and became encased in ice before falling from the sky.
Rowe and Fitzpatrick said poisoning was possible but unlikely. Rowe said birds of prey and other animals, including dogs and cats, ate several of the dead birds and suffered no ill effects. "Every dog and cat in the neighborhood that night was able to get a fresh snack that night," Rowe said.
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Communicated by:
Joe Shea
Editor-in-Chief
The American Reporter
<amreporter@aol.com>
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[2]
Date: Mon 3 Jan 2011
Source: The New York Times [edited]
<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/04/us/04beebe.html?_r=3D1&src=twrhp>
New Year's surprise: 4000 dead blackbirds
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Times Square had the ball drop, and Brasstown, North Carolina, had its descending possum. But no place had a New Year's Eve as unusual "and downright disturbing" as Beebe, Arkansas.
About 10 p.m. Friday [31 Dec 2010], thousands of red-winged blackbirds [yet the title said only blackbirds and they are not the same. - Mod.TG] began falling out of the sky over this town about 35 miles [56 km] northeast of Little Rock. They landed on roofs, roads, front lawns, and backyards, turning the ground nearly black and scaring anyone who happened to be outside.
"One of them almost hit my best friend in the head," said [a woman] who was standing outside among the smoking crowd at a New Year's Eve party. "We went inside after that."
The cause is still being determined, said Keith Stephens, a spokesman for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. Of the more than 4000 birds that fell on Beebe, 65 samples have been sent to labs, one in Arkansas, the other in Wisconsin. Some results may be available as soon as Monday [10 Jan 2011], Mr Stephens said.
For now, state officials are speculating that the birds may have died as a result of stress, startled by fireworks in the area, or perhaps by lightning. But, Mr Stephens acknowledged that the cause may never be known. It is, he said, the biggest case like this that he is aware of. "About 19 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 [3 Jan 2011] had picked up nearly all of the bird carcasses, some of which had been bagged and left by residents at the end of driveways. A few calls were still coming in, said Tracy Lightfoot, who sits on the City Council, but that was no surprise given how many birds had dropped out of the sky.
"It just looked as if it had rained birds," he said, declining to speculate on the reason. "There are lots of theories running around.
I have no idea. I just don't have a clue."
One thing is almost certain: the bird drop is not related to the 83 000 fish that died a few days earlier in the western part of the state, the biggest fish kill in Arkansas that anyone can remember.
They were spotted by anglers last week [30 Dec 2010] 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 [32 km].
In that case, the victims were almost all drum, and almost all younger ones. That suggests the culprit was disease, said Mark Oliver, the commission's chief of fisheries. He said that fish kills were not uncommon, especially in winter when fish are packed more closely, but he did not recall one of this size.
State officials have sent samples of dying, but not yet dead, fish to the fish disease lab at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, which could take a couple of weeks to reach conclusions.
The likelihood of a connection between dead fish in a river on one side of the state and dead birds from the sky in another is pretty much nil (nor is there any connection between these events and the yearlong swarm of mini-earthquakes in the center of the state).
But it is all rather odd.
Becky Short, who also sits on the City Council, said that in addition to the controversial fireworks theory, people have already begun joking about the biblical end times and UFO's.
Her conclusion was simpler. "Looks like some sort of phenomenon happened," she said.
[Byline: Campbell Robertson]
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Communicated by:
ProMED-mail Rapporteur Mary Marshall
[The red-winged black bird is _Agelaius phoeniceus _ is a beautiful bird who, according to some, has a bit of an obnoxious personality.
It is most likely an unfortunate coincidence that the fish kill happened just prior to the bird-fall. However, the distance between the events is substantial, and the number of days between the events (not the reporting of the events) would argue they are indeed separate events.
The necropsies of these birds may take a little time. Sorting out what happened vs the trauma of the fall may be time consuming.
We look forward to an authoritative report regarding the determined demise of the birds.
These articles do not make it clear which bird is primarily affected, the blackbird (_Turdus merula_) or the red-winged blackbird (_Agelaius phoeniceus _). The photos show red-winged blackbirds but the articles include both names.
Photos of red-winged blackbirds (_Agelaius phoeniceus _) may be found at <http://sdakotabirds.com/species/red_winged_blackbird_info.htm>
and photos of blackbirds (_Turdus merula_) may be found at <http://www.digital-nature-photography.com/nature/showeng.php?id=GR10/GRAM060204-5917&info=Amsel>
and <http://www.wildanimalsonline.com/birds/blackbird.php>. - Mod.TG]
[The HealthMap/ProMED-mail interactive map of Arkansas is available at <http://healthmap.org/r/0l35>. - Sr.Tech.Ed.MJ]
[ProMED-mail would like to thank the many subscribers who submitted the same or similar articles on this event. - Mod.MPP]
[see also:
Undiagnosed die-off, fish - USA: (AR), freshwater drum 20110104.0035
2009
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Undiagnosed die-off, avian - USA: (CA) 2007 agent ident. 20090303.0875 Undiagnosed die-off, avian - USA: (CA), RFI 20090109.0093
2008
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Undiagnosed die-off, avian - USA (FL): RFI 20081005.3145
2007
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Undiagnosed die-off, avian - USA (multistate) 20070705.2131 Undiagnosed die-off, avian - USA (TX) (02) 20070120.0267 Undiagnosed die-off, avian - USA (TX) 20070112.0137] ...................................tg/mj/mpp/ll
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