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CNN) -- Arkansas game officials hope testing scheduled to begin Monday will solve the mystery of why up to 5,000 blackbirds fell from the sky just before midnight New Year's Eve.
The birds -- most of which were dead -- were found within a one-mile area of Beebe, about 40 miles northeast of Little Rock, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission said. The blackbirds fell over about a one-mile area, the commission said in a statement.
As of Saturday, between 4,000 and 5,000 blackbirds had been found dead, said Keith Stephens with the commission.
"Shortly after I arrived, there were still birds falling from the sky," said commission wildlife officer Robby King in the statement. He said he collected about 65 dead birds.
GRIGGSTOWN, NJ - January 26, 2009 (WPVI) -- Like some scary old Hitchcock movie, they seem to be everywhere, hundreds if not thousands of dead starlings and blackbirds littering lawns in the Griggstown section of Franklin Township. The dead birds, we now know, are the result of a culling program by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture attempting to help a Princeton farm overrun by birds. The poison left for them takes 24 hours to ingest before the birds die. Local officials said the feds gave nothing but a vague notification of what was happening. "They did not tell us when they were gonna do it, where they were gonna do it or what the aftermath would be," said Kenneth Daly, Franklin Township Manager.
Originally posted by CIAGypsy
Another poster brought up a very good point. There is a chemical weapons depot about 60 miles south of this location:
Pine Bluff Chemical Weapons depot
More support for my theory that this is no accident or freak "weather" occurrance.
Originally posted by CIAGypsy
reply to post by captaintyinknots
Possible....
But that would not explain why only ONE species of fish and ONE species of birds have been affected. What makes them different than other species which were not affected?
What makes a killing agent discriminate a species??? DNA???
Originally posted by FarArcher
But blackbirds? Something very unusual would call them into a concentration like this, thus an entirely different mystery.
Outside of the nesting season, blackbirds generally feed in flocks and roost at night in congregations varying from a few birds to over one million birds. These flocks and roosting congregations are sometimes comprised of a single species, but often several species mix together. Sometimes they are joined by non-blackbird species, notably European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) and American robins (Turdus migratorius). The species also have many important differences in their nesting biology, preferred foods, migration patterns, and their damage and benefits to agriculture.
The dead birds, we now know, are the result of a culling program by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture attempting to help a Princeton farm overrun by birds.
Originally posted by CIAGypsy
Yes, besides the thousands of fish that died just a few days before this....
There are the earthquakes too. The towns of Guy/Greenbrier Arkansas have experienced literally THOUSANDS of small earthquakes over the past 4 months. While these kind of "swarm" earthquakes have happened in the past, there are no known faults supposedly in these areas. Local residents seem to think its the gas companies but USGS decries that theory.
So how do you explain this? Can't be fireworks....otherwise you'd see millions of birds dropping dead every 4th of July. What a ridiculous theory....