Earthquake 'Swarm' Rattles Arkansas; Thousands of Dead Birds Fall from Sky; Thousands of Fish Die

Arkansas Birds Fell from Sky after "Massive Trauma"

January 3, 2011

Associated Press – New Year's revelers in a small Arkansas town were enjoying midnight fireworks when they noticed something other than sparks falling from the sky: thousands of dead blackbirds. The red-winged blackbirds rained out of the darkness onto rooftops and sidewalks and into fields. One struck a woman walking her dog. Another hit a police cruiser.

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."

In all, more than 3,000 birds tumbled to the ground. Scientists said Monday that fireworks appeared to have frightened the birds into such a frenzy that they crashed into homes, cars and each other. Some may have flown straight into the ground.

"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."

But Rowe stopped short of declaring the mystery solved, saying labs planned to test bird carcasses for toxins or disease. Another theory was that violent thunderstorms might have disoriented the flock or even just one bird that could have led the group in a fatal plunge to the ground.

A few stunned birds survived their fall and stumbled around like drunken revelers. 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.

"I turn and look across my yard, and there's all these lumps," said Shane Roberts, who thought hail was falling until he saw a dazed blackbird beneath his truck. His 16-year-old daughter, Alex, spent Saturday morning picking them up. "Their legs are really squishy," the teen 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."

Paul Duke filled three five-gallon buckets with dead birds on New Year's Day.

"They were on the roof of the house, in the yard, on the sidewalks, in the street," said Duke, a suspension supervisor at a nearby school.

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

"The whole sky turns black every morning and every night," Roberts said.

On Monday, a few live birds chirped and hopped from tree to tree behind the Roberts' home. A few dead birds still littered town streets.

At Duke's home, bird feeders stood empty. He fills them when bluebirds come in the summer but leaves them empty during blackbird season.

"They'd eat 50 pounds of feed a day," he said. "You couldn't keep them full."

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, N.Y. Rowe put the number of dead in Beebe at "easily 3,000." Thousands can roost in one tree.

The Game and Fish Commission shipped carcasses to the Arkansas Livestock and Poultry Commission and the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis. Researchers at the University of Georgia's wildlife disease study group also asked for a set of birds. Test results could be back in a week.

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

"They died from massive trauma," said Game and Fish Commission spokesman Keith Stephens, citing a report from the state poultry lab where the birds were examined. The injuries were primarily in the breast tissue, with blood clotting and bleeding in the body cavities.

Residents heard loud fireworks just before the birds started hitting the ground.

"They started going crazy, flying into one another," Stephens said. The birds apparently also hit homes, trees and other objects, and some could have been killed by flying hard into the ground.

The area where the birds fell is too large to determine if any specific blast rousted the birds, Police Chief Wayne Ballew said.

"It was New Year's Eve night. Everybody and their brother was shooting fireworks," Ballew said. The city allows fireworks only on New Year's Eve and Independence Day.

Bad weather was to blame for earlier bird kills in Arkansas.

In 2001, lightning killed dozens of 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.

In 1973, hail knocked birds from the sky at Stuttgart, Ark., 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. Some were described as bowling balls with feathers.

Earlier Friday, a tornado killed three people in Cincinnati, Ark., about 150 miles away, but most of the bad weather was already past Beebe when the birds died.

Rowe initially said poisoning was possible, but unlikely. 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," Rowe said.

The birds were the second mass wildlife death in Arkansas in recent days. Last week, several thousand dead drum fish washed up along a 20-mile stretch of the Arkansas River, about 100 miles west of Beebe. Wildlife officials say the fish deaths are not related to the dead birds, and that because only one species of fish was affected, it is likely they were stricken by an illness.

Earthquake 'Swarm' Rattles Arkansas Town and Its Residents

Could the release of sulfur dioxide or methane gas from recent earthquake activity account for the dead fish and birds in Arkansas?

December 13, 2010

CNN - The Arkansas Geological Survey is trying to unravel a mystery: What is causing earthquakes in the town of Guy, Arkansas?

Since September 20, the community of 549 residents north of Little Rock has experienced an almost constant shaking from 487 measurable earthquakes.

"We've had 15 today including a 3.1 (magnitude) from this morning," Scott Ausbrooks, geohazards supervisor for the Geological Survey, said Monday. "These are shallow quakes between two and eight kilometers (between one-and-a-quarter and five miles) below the surface."

While earthquakes aren't unusual in the Southeast state, the frequency is.

"This time last year we had 39 quakes total for the entire state," said Ausbrooks.

Most of the quakes in the swarm -- a localized surge of earthquakes with all of them about the same magnitude, according to the United States Geological Survey -- are so small they go unnoticed. The largest, a 4.0 on October 11, caused the only documented damage, cracking a window at a visitor's center to a state park.

Guy Mayor Sam Higdon said when the swarm first happened, citizens took notice.

"They were calling City Hall asking, "What are you going to do?'" he said.

In response to the constant bombardment of tiny quakes, Higdon's office has organized a three-hour long town meeting, and sought the help of state geologists and members of the oil and gas industry to find answers.

"My wife wants to buy earthquake insurance. I'm trying to talk her out of it," the mayor said Monday.

There are several geologic faults in the area, but none associated with the New Madrid fault, the large seismic fault in the region and one that was the source of an estimated 7.0-magnitude earthquake in 1811. And there was another historic flurry of earthquakes in 1982, 15 miles south of Guy. Geologists know it as the Enola Swarm, responsible for 15,000 quakes within a year's time, followed by more shaking in 2001.

At first, town officials assumed the current wave of shakes came from work at a gravel company on the outskirts of town.



Ausbrooks says the state Geological Survey has no idea whether the current swarm is a natural or man-made event, but his office is seriously exploring the latter.

"We see no relation to the drilling in the area, but we haven't ruled out a connection to the salt water disposal wells," he said.

According to the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission, there are at least a half dozen "disposal wells" within a 500-square-mile zone around Guy. Licensed by the state of Arkansas, disposal wells are a byproduct of the oil and gas industry and are used to inject drilling waste water back into the earth after drilling.

Ausbrooks said drillers inject waste water into the earth at high pressure, and in the area around the town the disposal wells go as deep as 12,000 feet. He points to incidents in Colorado in the 1960s at Rocky Mountain Arsenal, where deep water injection was tied to earthquakes.

Last week the state of Arkansas issued a moratorium on new drilling permits. Lawrence Bengal, director of the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission, said previously his office required only monthly reports outlining the operations of injection wells.

"We're asking well operators to provide daily reports now," Benegal said.

Ausbrooks said his office is pouring over the data trying to determine whether there is a correlation between the disposal wells and the shaking, and he hopes to present preliminary findings to the state next month.



Comments and Resplies from PrisonPlanet.com on Fish and Bird Deaths in Arkansas:

# trix Says (January 3rd, 2011 at 11:33 am):
Ok, I haven’t commented on here before, but I do have to say though this may sound silly to some of you. I was letting my dog outside to do her thing that night and the hair on her back was completely raised; as soon as she passed through the threshold of my front door she looked freaked out, though I did not hear or see anything, which I thought was very strange; and she refused to do her business. She also seemed sick all weekend because I was waiting for her to perk up before giving her a bath. She seemed very perky this morning but still acts like something is outside? Creepy huh? By the way I live in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Iterator Reply (January 3rd, 2011 at 11:50 am):
Trix, it is natural for household pets to act strange before earthquakes. They can hear and smell things we can’t. If I am right and the underground chatter is that, a volcanic event could be happening there soon. Don’t listen to the extremes: all points to gas killing the birds and fish (they were bottom feeders in a river--that would explain why only they died because of moving water). They are not putting out an alert yet because, if they did and nothing happens, it would ruin the economy. Listen to your dog--the hints will tell you when to get out.

Iterator Reply (January 3rd, 2011 at 12:02 pm):
Trix, also google sulfur dioxide poisoning--it is the gas that is created when sulfur from volcanoes mixes with oxygen. Look to the hints they give if you see people with the symptoms...also good to know when to get out if it happens.

What's Going On in Arkansas: Massive Bird and Fish Kill Unexplained

Arkansas Game Officials Probe Mystery of Falling Birds

CNN
January 2, 2011

Arkansas game officials hope testing scheduled to begin Monday will solve the mystery of why up to 5,000 birds fell from the sky just before midnight New Year's Eve.

The birds -- most of which were dead -- were red-winged blackbirds and starlings, and they were found within a one-mile area of Beebe, about 40 miles northeast of Little Rock, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission said. Birds fell over about a one-mile area, the commission said in a statement.

As of Saturday, between 4,000 and 5,000 birds 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.

The commission said it flew over the area to gauge the scope of the event, and no birds were found outside of the initial one-mile area.

Karen Rowe, an ornithologist for the commission, said the incident is not that unusual and is often caused by a lightning strike or high-altitude hail.

A strong storm system moved through the state earlier in the day Friday.

"It's important to understand that a sick bird can't fly. So whatever happened to these birds happened very quickly," Rowe told CNN Radio on Sunday.

"Something must have caused these birds to flush out of the trees at night, where they're normally just roosting and staying in the treetops ... and then something got them out of the air and caused their death and then they fell to earth," Rowe added.

Officials also speculated that fireworks shot by New Year's revelers in the area might have caused severe stress in the birds. Rowe said Sunday there was evidence that large fireworks may have played a role.

"Initial examinations of a few of the dead birds showed trauma. Whether or not this trauma was from the force of hitting the ground when they fell or from something that contacted them in the air, we don't know," Rowe said.

The dead birds will be sent for testing to labs at the Arkansas Livestock and Poultry Commission and the National Wildlife Health Center in Wisconsin.

The necropsies will begin Monday, Stephens said, and the findings should be available sometime this week.

The city of Beebe has hired U.S. Environmental Services to begin the cleanup and dispose of the dead birds, the commission said. The firm's workers will go door-to-door and pick up birds still in yards and on rooftops.

AND, IF THAT ISN'T STRANGE ENOUGH, THE STATE HAS A MASSIVE FISH KILL AS WELL.



Massive Fish Kill Blankets Arkansas River

CNN
January 3, 2011

Arkansas officials are investigating the death of an estimated 100,000 fish in the state's northwest, but suspect disease was to blame, a state spokesman said Sunday.

Dead drum fish floated in the water and lined the banks of a 20-mile stretch of the Arkansas River near Ozark, about 125 miles northwest of Little Rock, said Keith Stephens of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. A tugboat operator discovered the fish kill Thursday night, and fisheries officials collected some of the dying animals to conduct tests.

Stephens said fish kills occur every year, but the size of the latest one is unusual, and suggested some sort of disease was to blame.

"The fish kill only affected one species of fish," he said. "If it was from a pollutant, it would have affected all of the fish, not just drum fish."

Ozark is about 125 miles west of the town of Beebe, where game wardens are trying to find out why up to 5,000 blackbirds fell from the sky just before midnight New Year's Eve.

Dead birds a mystery in Arkansas

Biologists believe the bird deaths were stress-related from either fireworks or weather and are unrelated to the fish kill near Ozark, Stephens said.

Flashback: Dead Birds in New Jersey Were Killed on Purpose by USDA

January 26, 2009

The Star-Ledger - Hundreds of birds that dropped dead on Somerset County cars, porches and snow-covered lawns, alarming residents over the weekend, were all of a rather foul breed of fowl--the notorious European starling, which the United States Department of Agriculture killed on purpose.

The starling, a prominent figure in Shakespeare's "Henry IV," has become a royal nuisance in North America. They have been invading farms and pushing out native wildlife since a New York City group infatuated with the playwright released about 100 imported starlings in Central Park in 1890 and 1891.

It was part of an ill-conceived plan by the American Acclimatization Society to fill America with all the birds mentioned in Shakespeare's works. Now, the USDA is acknowledging making a few mistakes of its own by not more fully warning people around a Princeton Township farm, where it applied a pesticide on Friday to kill 3,000 to 5,000 starlings that have been plaguing a livestock farmer.

"It was raining dead birds," said Franklin Township Mayor Brian Levine, explaining how people watched starlings drop throughout the Griggstown section of his town, which borders Princeton Township in Mercer County.

"People were concerned. They were wondering why there were so many dead birds lying around," he said.

Everything from Avian influenza to West Nile disease, both bird-killing ailments that also affect humans, was feared. But no humans or pets were ever at risk, said the USDA, contending the pesticide, known as DRC-1339, is inert once it is eaten by the birds and becomes metabolized.

That part of the story is only now reaching residents in Somerset County's Franklin Township, where officials continued efforts today to help citizens find ways to dispose of the bird corpses filling up their lawns.

"Unfortunately, this was also done on a Friday, so the birds died on the weekend when no one was around to respond to calls. I can just imagine it would have been very disconcerting for people to find the birds dead," said Carol Bannerman, a USDA spokeswoman.

State agriculture and wildlife officials were notified two weeks ago, along with Somerset County officials. But Ken Daly, Franklin Township's administrator, said the township was told too little, too late.

"The only notice we got in the municipal building was on Friday, a second-hand phone call from our county health director that somewhere, sometime the USDA would be culling birds. No one knew what that meant. If we had known it was coming, we could have gotten word out to the residents," he said.

The pesticide was applied by the USDA on bait piles at the farm, and federal authorities said there was one other miscalculation.

While the pesticide has been used in the past in densely populated New Jersey, this time the starlings moved far off the Mercer County farm where they ingested it.

"In a rural situation the birds would have concentrated in one roosting location. Apparently here, they were feeding in one location and roosting elsewhere, in areas quite dispersed and away from the farm," Bannerman said.

She said the farmer had tried non-lethal efforts before calling the USDA.

"The farmer has a variety of livestock, and the birds would eat the seed which takes food away from the livestock, costs the farmer money. Also, as the birds eat, they excrete droppings into the food left for the livestock to eat. It was a very unhealthy situation," Bannerman said.

"The farmer had tried other non-lethal methods, like changing the food he was feeding his animals, dispersing the birds, trying to chase them away and having predator birds on the farm. There just wasn't any impact," she added.

Starlings move in large flocks and are very aggressive. They will push native birds, including the American kestrel, woodpeckers, martins and blue birds from tree holes and other roosts, especially during breeding season.

But they pose equally troublesome hazards for humans, with starling flocks colliding with aircraft, fouling power stations and setting up winter roosts in the ornate facades of old towns, defecating on shoppers as well as the buildings. The Town of Dover, in Morris County, tried a long list of non-lethal control efforts before largely giving up its battle with the birds in the 1980s.

"We really didn't solve the problem," said Health Officer Donald Costanzo.

"We used the sound system we use for Christmas music, playing sounds of starlings in distress, which was supposed to get them to leave," he explained. "The sound agitated the starlings, so they would start screeching even more, but they didn't leave. And we had our own sounds of starlings screeching over the speakers. It all just got so annoying to everyone, we turned it off."