I expect Dr. Niman to say this is not of concerne...( hopefuly...
)
http://www.suite101.com/content/mysteri ... ky-a326982Mysterious Event in Arkansas: Black Birds Fall From the SkyBy May Evans
Published Jan 2, 2011
"I thought it was out of an Albert [sic] Hitchcock movie" said one resident of Beebe, Arkansas, referring to a chilling incident reported January 1, 2011 by Roger Susanin for CNN News in "Birds Fall from the Sky." A subdivision in Beebe was thickly covered with the corpses of dead birds.
most common type found was the red-winged black birds.
Lightning Not Likely Cause
According to "Flash Facts About Lightning" by the staff of National Geographic News, lightning can "reach over five miles (eight kilometers) in length, raise the temperature of the air by as much as 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit (27,700 degrees Celsius), and contain a hundred million electrical volts." Certainly, lightning is a dramatic, if common, atmospheric event, but I could find no past lightning events reported to cause such a massive death toll.
Hail-storms Linked to Bird Death
Images
However, I did find precedent for hail causing death to birds. On March 4, 2010 the Government of India's Press Information Bureau published a press release entitled "Death of birds due to widespread hail storm." This reported that the primary cause of increased bird mortality
"during 2009-2010 was due to wide-spread hailstorms" in northern India. Unfortunately, further details were not released.Few Survivors Found
Susanin reported that some birds were found in Beebe, still alive and well, despite all the death around them. Did these birds arrive after the cause of death, or were they survivors of an unusual event? We will have to wait for the Arkansas Fish and Game Commission's research to know for sure.
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video link :
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/201 ... atv?hpt=C2------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thousands of dead birds picked up in Ark. town
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 00491.htmlThe Associated Press Sunday, January 2, 2011; 10:03 PM
Mike Robertson, the mayor in Beebe, told The Associated Press the last dead bird was removed about 11 a.m. Sunday in the town about
40 miles northeast of Little Rock. He said 12 to 15 workers, hired by the city to do the cleanup,
wore environmental-protection suits for the task.
...Robertson said the workers wore the suits as a matter of routine and not out of fear that the birds might be contaminated. He said speculation on the cause is not focusing on disease or poisoning.
Several hundred thousand red-winged blackbirds have used a wooded area in the town as a roost for the past several years, he said. Robertson and other officials went to the roost area over the weekend and found no dead birds on the ground.
"That pretty much rules out an illness" or poisoning, the mayor said.
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http://toronto.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/ ... ntoNewHomeOfficials investigate after dead birds fall from skyUpdated: Sun Jan. 02 2011 7:13:46 PM
CTV.ca News
Wildlife officials are scratching their heads after more than 1,000 dead blackbirds fell from the sky this weekend, leaving the roads and lawns of one small Arkansas town littered with their remains.
The Arkansas Game and Fishing Commission said they started hearing reports from Beebe, Ark., at around 11:30 p.m. on New Year's Eve.
Officers estimated that over 1,000 birds fell from the sky before the incident stopped around midnight. In most cases the birds were dead, but some were found clinging to life.
"Shortly after I arrived, there were still birds falling from the sky," said AGFC wildlife officer Robby King in a statement. He collected 65 samples that were sent to be studied by livestock and wildlife health experts.
The birds were found in an area spanning more than 1.5 kilometres and are being cleaned up by a private company.
It appears the incident only involved blackbirds.
...This is not the first time the phenomenon of a mass of birds falling dead from the sky has been reported.
Earlier this year, scores of blackbirds fell dead into a front garden in the county of Sommerset, in England.
Similar incidents were reported in Australia in 2008 and 2007, while dozens of birds dropped dead in the streets of Austin, Texas in 2007.
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http://www.wreg.com/lifestyle/sns-ap-ar ... 9721.storyState commission says dead fish now cover 20-mile section of Arkansas RiverBy Associated Press
6:20 p.m. CST, January 1, 2011
Seven teams from the state agency visited the affected portion of the river Friday. Commission spokesman Keith Stephens says an official estimate of how many fish have died is expected on Monday, but he tells the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that the number is likely in the hundreds of thousands.
The commission determined the fish died in the river from a dam near Ozark to a bridge along State Highway 109 near Clarksville.
Stephens says some of the live drum fish were sick and will be sent to a lab at the University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff for testing.
Drum fish are bottom feeders that eat other fish and insects.[color=#408000]
Question : Would they eat a bird that was in the water also?color]
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