Bad Gone Blog

Thousands of dead turtle doves rained down on roofs and cars in an Italian town in the latest in a growing spate of mass animal deaths across the globe.

Residents in Faenza described the birds falling to the ground like ‘little Christmas balls’ with strange blue stains on their beaks.

Initial tests on up to 8,000 of the doves indicated that the blue stain could have been caused by poisoning or hypoxia.

A witness told www.examiner.com: ‘We have no idea why this happened all of a sudden.

‘The doves just started falling one-by-one then in groups of 10s and 20s.’

Hypoxia, a lack of oxygen, is known to cause confusion and illness in animals. It is also a common precursor to altitude sickness.

Experts said results from tests on the doves will not be available for at least a week.

They said that cold weather could have caused the birds’ deaths as the flock was swept into a high-altitude wind storm before falling to the earth.

It comes after two million dead fish were found to have washed up on shores in Chesapeake Bay, Maryland.
The alarming find is being blamed by authorities in Maryland on the stress caused by unusually cold water and overbreeding among spot fish.

That investigation comes just days after the deaths of an estimated 100,000 fish in northwest Arkansas, which is being blamed on disease.

A statement by the Maryland Department of the Environment said: ‘Natural causes appear to be the reason.
‘Cold water stress exacerbated by a large population of the affected species (juvenile spot fish) appears to be the cause of the kill.’

Preliminary tests of the water in Chesapeake Bay have showed the quality was acceptable, officials said.

The statement added: ‘The affected fish are almost exclusively juvenile spot fish, three to six 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.’

Mass winter deaths among spot fish have occurred twice before in the Maryland area – in 1976 and 1980.

The incident is the latest mass animal death to hit the headlines in the last two weeks.

These include:

450 red-winged blackbirds, brown-headed cowbirds, grackles and starlings found littering a highway in Baton Rouge, Louisiana

3,000 blackbirds on roofs and roads in the small town of Beebe, Arkansas

Thousands of ‘devil crabs’ washed up along the Kent coast near Thanet

Thousands of drum fish washed along a 20-mile stretch of the Arkansas River

Two million small fish in Chesapeake Bay, Maryland

Thousands of dead fish found floating in warm Florida creek

Hundreds of snapper fish found dead in New Zealand

Scores of American Coots found dead on Texas highway bridge

Experts have speculated that New Year fireworks, thunderstorms, cold weather, parasites and even poisoning may be behind the deaths.

But conspiracy theorists have also speculated on the internet that secret government experiments could be behind them, with some even claiming it was a sign of a looming Armageddon at the end of the Mayan calendar next year.

Another theory is that the rapid movement of the Magnetic North Pole towards Russia may have affected the birds’ innate navigation systems.

Inbuilt navigation systems in birds and fish is believed to be affected by magnetism.
Scientists have said the Magnetic North Pole is shifting at an average of around 25 miles a year.

With birds and fish relying on it to travel to breeding grounds and warmed climes, there are fears that the shifting pole could be confusing the animals which means they do not migrate in time to avoid cold weather.
Tests are being carried out on the dead birds and fish, but results are not expected for several weeks.

Scientists have been baffled by the sudden deaths of hundreds of birds which have plummeted to the ground seemingly simultaneously in several locations.

Two hundred American Coots were found dead on a highway bridge crossing Lake O’ the Pines in Big Cypress Creek, Texas.

They are believed to have been hit by passing vehicles while walking or apparently trying to roost on the bridge.

Swedish experts blamed the shock of New Year fireworks for the unexplained deaths of 50 jackdaws found on a street in Falkoping, Sweden.

Many of the birds are believed to have died from stress or as a result of being run over while disoriented.

The largest incident took place in Beebe, Arkansas, were horrified revellers witnessed around 3,000 blackbirds crashing to their deaths into homes, cars and each other as they celebrated New Year.

Another 450 birds were found strewn along a highway in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, after apparently hitting overhead power lines.

In both cases, the birds are believed to have become confused and were flying at a lower height than usual.
The deaths of tons of fish across the globe is being attributed to unusually cold water.

Thousands of Brazilian fishermen have been left struggling to make ends meet after the sale of seafood was temporarily suspended when masses of fish were discovered in Paranaguá, Antonina and Guaraqueçaba Pontal do Paraná.

Fish were also discovered rotting and floating in Spruce Creek, Florida, after another period of cold weather.

100,000 drum fish were found strewn along the shore of the Arkansas River.

And the cold snap has been blamed for the deaths of 40,000 Velvet swimming crabs – known as ‘devil crabs – found littering beaches in Thanet, Kent.

~Boo~

So for the small town of Beebe, Arkansas, where New Year’s revelers spent the holiday weekend cleaning up more than 3,000 dead red-winged blackbirds, The Mystery of Why the Birds Fell Out of the Sky remains unsolved.

Some speculated Monday that a bout of bad weather was to blame. Others said one confused bird could have led the group in a fatal plunge. A few spooked schoolkids even guessed that the birds had committed mass suicide.

“There was probably some physical reason, but I doubt anyone will ever know what it was,” said Thurman Booth, the state’s wildlife services director.

The birds were the second mass wildlife death in Arkansas in recent days. Last week, about 83,000 dead and dying drum fish washed up along a 30-kilometre stretch of the Arkansas River, about 160 kilometres west of Beebe. Wildlife officials say the fish deaths are not related to the dead birds, and that because mainly one species of fish was affected, it is likely they were stricken by an illness. Full test results could take up to a month.

While officials examine bird carcasses for signs of disease and labs test the contents of their stomachs for toxins, the tale of the blackbirds’ tumble is quickly turning into the stuff of local legend.

The blackbirds rained onto rooftops and sidewalks and into fields. One struck a woman walking her dog. Another hit a police cruiser. Some say an umbrella was one resident’s only protection from the falling birds.

Birds were “littering the streets, the yards, the driveways, everywhere,” said Robby King, a county wildlife officer in Beebe, a community of 5,000 northeast of Little Rock. “It was hard to drive down the street in some places without running over them.”

A few stunned survivors stumbled around like drunken partiers.

There was little light across the countryside at the time, save for the glimmer of fireworks and some lightning on the horizon. In the tumult, many birds probably lost their bearings.

“The blackbirds were flying at rooftop level instead of treetop level” to avoid explosions above, said Karen Rowe, an ornithologist with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. “Blackbirds have poor eyesight, and they started colliding with things.”

Shane Roberts said it sounded like hail pelting his house.

“I turn and look across my yard, and there’s all these lumps,” Roberts said.

For some people, the scene unfolding shortly before midnight evoked images of the apocalypse and cut short New Year’s celebrations. Many families phoned police instead of popping champagne.

“I think the switchboard lit up pretty good,” said Beebe police Capt. Eddie Cullum. “For all the doomsdayers, that was definitely the end of the world.”

The birds will not be missed. Large roosts like the one at Beebe can have thousands of birds in one tree that leave ankle- to knee-deep piles of droppings in places.

“The whole sky turns black every morning and every night,” Roberts said, as a few live birds chirped and hopped from tree to tree behind his home.

Red-winged blackbirds are the among North America’s most abundant birds, with somewhere between 100 million and 200 million nationwide, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York. Rowe put the number of dead in Beebe at “easily 3,000.”

The Game and Fish Commission shipped carcasses to the Arkansas Livestock and Poultry Commission and the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wisconsin. Researchers at the University of Georgia’s wildlife disease study group also asked for a set of birds.

A few grackles and a couple of starlings also were among the dead. Those species roost with blackbirds, particularly in winter.

~Boo~