Dead birds and fish update: California birds may have been killed by a truck
It appears that the 100 dead birds found on a San Francisco Bay Area freeway were killed by a truck, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat reports.
On Tuesday, State wildlife experts said the dead European starlings were hit by a truck. That conclusion was based on a witness report and examinations of the birds. Experts say it will take another three days for tests to be completed in order to rule out other causes.
Starlings are known to fly in flocks close together. A witness said they were flying close to the ground when they collided with the truck. The witness told Fish and Game investigators that it looked as though the birds "were committing suicide."
The truck didn't stop. The birds were found scattered across Highway 101 in Sonoma County, between the towns of Healdsburg and Geyservile, about an hour north of San Francisco.
Since the story of mass animal deaths first began over the New Year's weekend, the Sonoma County case marks the first such case in California and it appears to have a decidedly non-sensational cause. Wild theories about the animal deaths have snowballed on the Internet since the first story of thousands of birds flying from the sky in Arkansas. Those bird deaths were blamed on New Year's fireworks.
Chicago fish deaths
While authorities in California on Tuesday appear to have solved the case of the dead birds there, there was a new report of dead fish halfway across the country in Lake Michigan, in Chicago. Click here for that story and the explanation of what may have caused those deaths.
While the California and Chicago cases appear to be solved, what could be causing the other dead bird and fish cases?
One theory is that the animals are being confused by a shift in the earth's magnetic fields; click here for more on that theory.
The case of the 1,000 turtle doves falling from the sky in Italy may have been the result of the birds overeating. Click here for that expert theory.
Click here for information on a recent case of dead fish that were found in England and what experts think caused their deaths.
The consensus among scientists is no and no.
In an article posted online Saturday in the Wall Street Journal's Web site Saturday, Paul Slota, spokesman for the U.S. Geological Survey, which has been tracking mass animal deaths since the 1970s. told the paper that mass animal kills are not uncommon.
"In the last 10 years we have logged 188 cases just involving birds with mortality exceeding 1,000 animals per event," the USGS expert told the WSJ.
See also the Associated Press video on the left. Other experts echoed that opinion to the AP.
More evidence is surfacing that the reports of massive dead birds and fish that were found in Arkansas, Louisiana, Nashville, Tennessee and overseas in Sweden, Brazil, New Zealand and the UK are not unusual.
Thousands of dead crabs washed on shore in England but UK authorities say that cold weather is most likely to blame.
The USGS says mass animal kills happens regularly in nature and some of the deaths could also be related to toxins and loud noise produced by man. The mass bird deaths in Arkansas are thought to be the result of noise from New Years fireworks.
The Washington Post reported on Friday that the 2 million dead fish that were found in Maryland may be the result of unusually cool weather.
"It's colder than it's been in 25 years," Dawn Stoltzfus, a spokeswoman for the Maryland Department of the Environment told the Post. "That's terrible news for the (fish). In 1976, 15 million were killed during a cold snap."
The BBC is also debunking the conspiracy theories which blame the dead birds and fish on everything from BP to a sign from God. One biblical scholar, Harold Camping, has predicted the end of the world will be on May 21, 2011. That has caused more to suspect that the bird and fish kills could be a precursor to the apocalypse. Some have jokingly called it the "aflockalypse."
The BCC concludes, "But experts insist that what is going on is pretty common and that the incidents are unconnected."
Could we be hearing more about mass bird and fish kills because there is more reporting of the kills in the media?
Comments
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