Topic: Massive Bird- and Fish-Kills

[Nichi]

Up to 5,000 birds fell from Arkansas sky

BEEBE, Ark. — The number of birds that fell on this Arkansas town on New Year's Eve night is now estimated at 4,000 to 5,000, a wildlife official told msnbc.com, up sharply from the initial estimate of 1,000.

Keith Stephens, a spokesman for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, provided the new numbers, adding that 65 carcasses of the red-winged blackbirds had been collected and were being tested to determine the cause of death.

"We may have something today" on the cause, he said.

The state Livestock and Poultry Commission Lab and the National Wildlife Health Center Lab in Madison, Wis., are examining the dead birds.

Commission ornithologist Karen Rowe said the flock could have been hit by lightning or high-altitude hail, or may have been startled by fireworks.

Mike Robertson, the mayor in Beebe, said 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.

The birds had fallen Friday night over a 1-mile area of Beebe, and an aerial survey indicated that no other dead birds were found outside of that area. The workers from U.S. Environmental Services started the cleanup Saturday.

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.

"It started at 7 a.m., picking up birds on the street, in the yards, been run over. It's just a mess," Beebe Street Department supervisor Milton McCullar told WISC-TV.

Video: In Arkansas, it rained dead birds (on this page)
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.

Rowe said Saturday the birds showed physical trauma, and speculated that "the flock could have been hit by lightning or high-altitude hail."

The commission said that New Year's Eve revelers shooting off fireworks could have startled the birds from their roost and caused them to die from stress.

Safety fears
"I've been to Iraq and back and not seen nothing like this," Beebe resident Jeff Drennan told local Fox16 News on Sunday.

"You know my kids are out here playing and you don't know, is it safe?" he added. "They're walking around with chemical suits picking them up with gas masks and everything."

Another resident, Janis Donahue, told Fox16 that her husband picked up around 35 or 40 birds in their yard alone.

Rowe said similar events have occurred elsewhere and that test results "usually were inconclusive." She said she doubted the birds were poisoned.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40885546/ns/us_news-environment/

[Nichi]

Up to 100,000 fish found dead along Arkansas River

State officials on Monday were investigating why 80,000 to 100,000 fish washed up dead on the shores of the Arkansas River last week.

"The fish deaths will take about a month" to determine a cause, Keith Stephens, a spokesman for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, told msnbc.com.

Stephens also provided the estimate of 80,000 to 100,000 dead fish.

The fish were found Thursday by a tugboat operator along a 20-mile stretch of the Arkansas River near the city of Ozark.

The mass kill occurred just one day before thousands of blackbirds dropped dead from the sky in Beebe, Ark., which is 125 miles away.

Officials said 95 percent of the fish that died were drum fish — indicating that the likely cause of death was disease as only one species was affected.

"If it was from a pollutant, it would have affected all of the fish, not just drum fish," Stephens added.

Drum fish, which are bottom feeders, are not sought by fishermen, he added, and fishing was not banned as a precaution. "Right now it's fine to fish," KTHV quoted Stephens as saying. "If you go out there you can still fish for bass and crappie, catfish, it will be fine. Obviously don't eat the dead fish."

Fish were still floating on the same stretch of river as of Monday morning.

Stephens said that nature will be doing the cleanup. "We'll have raccoon and birds and things like that will take care of it so there is really no cleanup, it's really too big. It's contained along the river channel."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40887450/ns/us_news-environment/

[Nichi]

The order of this posting should have been reversed, but the story about the fish doesn't seem to make the news very dramatically until the story of the birds comes out.

Personally, I don't buy that "fireworks" or "lightning" was the culprit, and I can't imagine that the 2 events are unconnected. My first thought was that it was likely connected to something in the Gulf, but if that was the case, that will never got admitted. It will be interesting watching all the usual whitewash, though.

[Nichi]

Dead Birds Fall From Sky AGAIN In Louisiana, 300 Miles From Arkansas Incident Days Earlier
 
The Huffington Post   |  Travis Walter Donovan
First Posted: 01- 4-11 12:26 PM   

Around 500 dead birds have fallen from the sky in Louisiana, found scattered along a quarter-mile portion of highway in Point Coupee Parish, the AP reports. The discovery is approximately 300 miles south of Beebe, Arkansas, where just days earlier thousands of the same species of birds also fell from the sky.

Initial tests conducted by biologists on the red-winged blackbirds and starlings found in Arkansas revealed that the birds suffered internal injuries that formed deadly blood clots. Countless explanations have been speculated, from intense high-altitude weather like lightning or hail to disturbance from fireworks. Disease and poison were determined to be far less likely causes, though full test results won't rule them out until next week.

"There was probably some physical reason, but I doubt anyone will ever know what it was," Thurman Booth, Arkansas' wildlife services director, told CBS.

The latest occurrence of more dead birds turning up in Louisiana only compounds local residents' worries, as in the week prior to the Arkansas blackbird mystery, 83,000 dead drum fish washed up along a river about 100 miles west of Beebe. Wildlife officials claim the incidents are not related.

A Kentucky woman also reported finding dead birds in her yard Monday, though numbering far less in the dozens.

[Nichi]

Birds: Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky, US. Now in Stockholm, Sweden.

Fish: (Previously many in Louisiana), Arkansas, Florida near Orlando, the Chesapeake Bay near Maryland, Brazil, and New Zealand.
Sharks washing up in Gulf.

[Nichi]

Of all the bird-kills, it looks like Stockholm's might actually be related to fireworks. Though who knows...

Of interest in the US is what's called the "Mississippi Flyways": that second-to-the-most-easterly route hits both Arkansas and Kentucky.



This flyway is relatively simple although it presents some features of interest, chiefly as they affect the migratory waterfowl. It's eastern boundary runs through the peninsula of southern Ontario to western Lake Erie, then southwestwardly across Ohio and Indiana to the Mississippi where it rather closely follows the river to its mouth. The western boundary does not have such precise definition as the eastern boundary, and for this reason in eastern Nebraska and western Missouri and Arkansas the Mississippi Flyway merges imperceptibly into the Central Flyway. The longest migration route of any in the Western Hemisphere lies in this flyway. It's northern terminus is on the Arctic coast of Alaska and its southern end in Patagonia. During the spring migration some of the shorebirds traverse the full length of this great artery and several species that breed north to Yukon and Alaska must twice each year cover the larger part of it. For more than 3000 miles, from the mouth of the Mackenzie to the delta of the Mississippi, this route is uninterrupted by mountains. There is not even a ridge of hills on the entire route that is high enough to interfere with the movements of migrating birds, and the greatest elevation above sea level is less than 2000 feet. Well timbered and watered, the entire region affords ideal conditions for the support of hosts of migrating birds. The two rivers that mark it, the Mackenzie emptying on the Arctic coast and the Mississippi in the Gulf of Mexico, have a general north-and-south direction, another factor in determining the importance of this route which is used by large numbers of ducks, geese, shorebirds, blackbirds, sparrows, warbler and thrushes, The majority of North American land birds, seeking winter homes in the tropics, that come south through the Mississippi Flyway take the short cut across the Gulf of Mexico in preference to the longer, though presumably safer, land or island journey by way of Texas or the Antilles. During the height of migration some of the islands off the coasts of Louisiana and Texas are wonderful observation places. It was once thought that most of the North American birds that migrate to Central America made a leisurely trip along the west coast of Florida, crossed to Cuba and then made the short flight from the western tip of that island to Yucatan. The map will suggest this as the most natural route, but as a matter of fact, it is used by only certain swallows and shorebirds, or an occasional individual of some other species that has been driven from its accustomed course.

[Ke-ke wan]

I read this, thanks for the warning first, though, and it made me feel very heavy hearted.   Are you okay Vicki?  I know how much you love your feathered friends.  <3


I'm curious if any of it (obviously not the decapitations)  is related to chemtrails.  I've seen some strange bird activity here, just after I saw what looked like a chemtrail in the sky.  A flock of geese looked very confused.  Broke up into small formations, dropped the Vs and flew around in circles honking strangely.  I watched them for about an hour, until they finally got back together and re-formed their V, calmed their distressed honking and flew off into the sky. 

The chemtrails contain tiny pieces of metal dispersants such as aluminum and barium that I imagine to be harmful to a bird's navigation system and also probably fatal if ingested.  Also being sprayed, that we know of as yet, is black carbon dust .   

[Ke-ke wan]

PS, you may want to google the chemtrail dead bird and fish connection, there seems to be a lot of info on this.   

http://chemtruth.ning.com/video/thousands-of-birds-fall-from

Here's another one for now,


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kSQAFfFMdA

If you don't want to go this way in this thread, I'll add some info to the "What in the World are they Spraying?" thread. 

[Ke-ke wan]

This is what I saw here in Quesnel this past Summer, apparently its been seen elsewhere as well, 

<span data-s9e-mediaembed="youtube" style="display:inline-block;width:100%;max-width:640px"><span style="display:block;overflow:hidden;position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%"><iframe allowfullscreen="" loading="lazy" scrolling="no" style="background:url(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/8ohnQ7DZetQ/hqdefault.jpg) 50% 50% / cover;border:0;height:100%;left:0;position:absolute;width:100%" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8ohnQ7DZetQ"></iframe></span></span><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/8ohnQ7DZetQ?fs=1&amp;amp;hl=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/8ohnQ7DZetQ?fs=1&amp;amp;hl=en</a>

[Nichi]

I've seen some discussion of the HAARP-hypothesis. At this point, nothing would surprise me!

[Nichi]

I read this, thanks for the warning first, though, and it made me feel very heavy hearted.   Are you okay Vicki?  I know how much you love your feathered friends.  <3

Okiesmokies, but on guard, so to speak.

I'm curious if any of it (obviously not the decapitations)  is related to chemtrails.  I've seen some strange bird activity here, just after I saw what looked like a chemtrail in the sky.  A flock of geese looked very confused.  Broke up into small formations, dropped the Vs and flew around in circles honking strangely.  I watched them for about an hour, until they finally got back together and re-formed their V, calmed their distressed honking and flew off into the sky. 

I just don't know, Lor - "chemtrails" have been going on for a long time. I guess I wonder, why now - what's different?

That's very interesting what you got to observe with the geese flying.

[Nichi]

Birds: Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky, US. Now in Stockholm, Sweden.

Fish: (Previously many in Louisiana), Arkansas, Florida near Orlando, the Chesapeake Bay near Maryland, Brazil, and New Zealand.
Sharks washing up in Gulf.

Another couple reported:

Dead fish wash ashore on Folly Beach

Updated: Jan 06, 2011 5:43 PM EST

FOLLY BEACH, S.C. (WCIV) -- A nationwide scare involving mass deaths of fish and birds has now hit ground locally.

A giant fish kill has occurred at Folly Beach, and according to a report by The Post and Courier, one standing at the end of the pier can see a seemingly never ending line of dead fish in both directions.

Officials with the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (DNR) have confirmed that thousands of dead fish washed ashore behind the former Holiday Inn at Folly Beach and say the fish are all of the same species -- Menhaden.

"We're still waiting to see if DNR can come up with some kind of a clue as to why this happened." Folly Beach Mayor Tim Goodwin said.

If the Fish are not washed away by the tide, Folly Officials will be responsible for the clean up.

Bill Troy was out for his morning jog when he noticed thousands of the silver sided fish washed up on the shore.

" I came down this morning and right now I cam back and saw a bunch of dead bait fish," He said.

Thursday morning's discovery on Folly Beach adds to a nationwide mystery involving similar occurrences of mass fish and bird deaths.

The incident joins recent wildlife deaths at Chesapeake Bay and Lebanon, Tennessee -- adding to a steady growing list of similar incident across the nation.

In the Chesapeake Bay incident, as many as 2-million fish were found dead in what wildlife experts have attributed to cold water stress. In Lebanon more than 100 birds were discovered dead along a highway.

DNR officials believe the incident at Folly to also be cold related as we are experiencing ocean temperatures off the Carolina coast that are below average.

DNR biologist Phil Maier said the fish generally school in groups of 100,000 or more so the kill was relatively small. The fish are about 6 inches long.

Two weeks ago Isle of Palms beaches were also littered with dead sea life. Dead starfish and jellyfish washed ashore in what experts also attributed to cold weather and cold water temperature.

* ABC News 4 reporter Jon Bruce and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

They make reference to a kill in Tennessee - I'll have to look that one up.

[Nichi]

This article makes reference to a kill in Texas, which I didn't know about.

Flock Of Birds Found Dead In Wilson County
Wildlife Agent Says Birds Died 5-6 Days Ago

Reported By Deanna Lambert
UPDATED: 5:28 pm CST January 6, 2011

Add Middle Tennessee to the list of places where flocks of birds have shown up dead. Earlier in the week, birds were found dead in Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky and Texas.

A resident notified the agency Tuesday afternoon after he spotted dozens of dead birds along Highway 70 north in Lebanon a few days ago.

“It’s kind of a strange, odd thing. It plays into some of the things that have been happening in other places,” said Lt. Jim Hooper of the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency.

TWRA officials found 120 dead grackles in the Spring Creek area when they investigated the situation on Wednesday.

“We searched the adjoining fields and everywhere else, and there are no other birds except in this one very localized area,” said Hooper. “The birds have definitely been dead 5 or 6 days."

Over the past week, several hundred different black birds have turned up dead in at least four other states. But the question of exactly how these birds turned up dead in Lebanon could remain a mystery.

“The fact they have been dead that long, we're not going to be able to really be able to do any toxicology for finding out cause of death or possibly chemicals like that because they have been dead so long,” said Hooper.

Could Tennessee's dead birds be connected to ones in other states?

“No one knows because we've not heard anything out of the other states as to the cause of the death of some of those birds. Without being able to do toxicology on these, we really don't know what caused these birds to die,” said Hooper.

A TWRA biologist said his theory is that the birds, which travel in a flock of more than a thousand at a time, possibly could have been flying at night and hit power lines along Highway 70. He said the trauma from hitting the power lines may have knocked them out or broke bones, causing their death.

If the public sees a large number of dead birds, like 30 to 50, call the TWRA at 615-781-6622 as soon as possible. The quicker they are notified, the earlier they can check and test the birds to learn why they are dying.

A few weeks ago a group of dead birds were also found near the Hobson Pike Bridge in Davidson County.

[Nichi]

Birds: Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, US. Also Stockholm, Sweden.

Fish: (Previously many in Louisiana), Arkansas, Florida near Orlando, the Chesapeake Bay near Maryland, South Carolina, Brazil, and New Zealand.
Crabs in the UK.
Sharks washing up in Gulf.

[Nichi]

Something happened over the weekend, through Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday. I don't pretend to know what. Some of all the phenomena could be construed as a climax of something which has gradually been building, but the incidents all coalesce too neatly in the short time span. We may never know what happened.

It reminds me of the Navy Sonar testing, which killed dolphins and whales locally, if not elsewhere in the world as well, in a short time span. I'm not saying it was sonar-testing, but my gut tells me it was something that specific.  ~FWIW

Also of possible interest is that the pods which started turning up dead directly preceded the Great Tsunami.