Sudden massive bird deaths

[Ivy]

From the article I linked earlier:

But what about multiple bird kills happening in various locations? According to Graves, this is one of those times where the human brain's penchant for pattern-finding has gone a little haywire. Mass bird deaths aren't uncommon. There's a lot of reasons why they happen. Once we're primed to pay attention, we start to see them everywhere. But it doesn't mean those incidents are connected—any more than a double homicide in Arkansas is likely to be connected to a double homicide that happens the same week in Louisiana. We could be seeing a pattern, sure. But the chances aren't real high. Remember the large fish kill that happened in Louisiana last summer? Everybody speculated the oil spill was to blame. In reality, it was a natural occurrence, caused by fish getting trapped in low-oxygen tidal pools.

And, honestly, looking at the reported cases, I'm not sure I even see much of a pattern, at all. Let me explain ...

If you look at the Google map Xeni posted earlier today, you'll see that most of the mass animal deaths marked aren't blackbirds. They aren't even mostly birds. Here are the bird deaths marked:

Texas, number of birds not given—just "a large number": Texas Park and Wildlife officials say there are always dead birds on this particular bridge, probably because they get spooked by predators and then fly, in a group, into the path of cars.

Sweden, 50 to 100 jackdaws: No known cause, but experts think the birds were probably weak from overwintering, and, after being startled by fireworks, flew into traffic. Remember, this is 50 or 100 birds out of a flock that would probably have numbered in the hundreds of thousands.

Kentucky, "dozens" of dead birds: In this case, nobody saw the dead birds except the woman whose yard they landed in. She cleaned them up and, by her own admission, thought nothing of them until reports about the Arkansas die off scared her.

Although, this is pretty scary...

 

[JAVO]

Although, this is pretty scary...

Anything which such a clear pattern indicating evil must be taken seriously. :horor:

 

[CrystalViolet]

Google map tracking mass animal deaths:

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=U...l=25.165173,22.5&spn=154.641673,319.21875&z=1


Some of these are rather unusual, but let's not forget that more wild animals tend to die in the winter.

That theory doesn't work with the mass animal deaths in NZ and Australia. It's summer there.

 

[Ivy]

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Societ...DA-acknowledges-a-hand-in-one-mass-bird-death

edit: lol, ass bird death

 

[LEGERdeMAIN]

hah....OPERATION BYE, BYE BLACKBIRD....government people are ridiculous when it comes to naming things.

Animals dying en masse is not something to be afraid of, it's been happening since we started keeping track of happenings. Think of it as sacrifices to the gods- at least they won't destroy Earth for a while.

If any one group deserves blame for fish kills it's the environmentalists. Attempts at regulating ecosystems seems to be doing more harm than good- by micromanaging populations of wildlife, introducing new species and reintroducing species we are causing imbalances across interrelated ecosystems. Imbalances would occur without humans but there's no way to consistently and accurately predict the results of intervention. Preservation efforts are nullified by our weird obsession with turning marshes into golf courses and building single-level strip malls. Also, if you live near or visit a coastal area, STOP FEEDING THE GDMF'ing seagulls, thats why there's always shit all over my car and if you live on a golf course, go stomp on some goslings.

 

[Ivy]

http://www.boingboing.net/2011/01/21/things-that-kill-bir.html

As a nice follow-up to the hysteria that followed America's collective realization that, sometimes, birds die in groups, the New York Times offers up a story detailing what actually does the killing. Some facts:

• Five billion birds die in the U.S. every year, out of an average yearly population of 10 billion, minimum. During fall migration, for instance, the population can temporarily rise to 20 billion.

• "Even without humans, tens of millions of birds would be lost each year to natural predators and natural accidents." But we complicate matters. Often in surprising ways.

• For instance, rural domesticated cats in Wisconsin kill some 39 million birds every year, all on their own. That's not even counting their city cousins, or cats in neighboring states.

• Window strikes kill more birds than pesticides, at least when measured directly. It's hard to track indirect pesticide deaths, like chicks that die when their parent is killed by pesticide exposure. But, even if you assume an equal number of birds are killed indirectly as directly—i.e., double the number of pesticide deaths—it still doesn't even get close to the worst years on record for window-strike deaths.

Not to say that pesticide deaths aren't a problem—especially since the indirect deaths could be a lot bigger—but it's interesting to see this cause of death in context with others. It suggests that, if you care about wildlife, you probably want to spend more time scrutinizing our propensity to build big, all-glass buildings. There's an environmental issue here that's going overlooked.