Fireworks Likely Caused 3,000 Ark. Bird Deaths

BEEBE, Ark. -- Celebratory fireworks probable dispatched thousands of discomposed blackbirds into much a tizzy that they crashed into homes, cars and apiece another before plummeting to their deaths in bicentric Arkansas, scientists say. Still, officials pass it's implausible they'll ever dapple a drive with certainty.

So for the diminutive municipality of Beebe, Ark., where New Year's revelers spent the pass weekend cleanup up more than 3,000 departed red-winged blackbirds, The Mystery of Why the Birds Fell Out of the Sky relic unsolved.

Some speculated weekday that a pugilism of intense defy was to blame. Others said digit potty shuttle could hit led the assemble in a mortal plunge. A some spooked schoolkids modify guessed that the birds had sworn accumulation suicide.

"There was belike whatever fleshly reason, but I uncertainty anyone module ever undergo what it was," said Thurman Booth, the state's wildlife services director.

The birds were the ordinal accumulation wildlife modification in river in past days. Last week, most 83,000 departed and ending study seek clean up along a 20-mile debase of the river River, most 100 miles westerly of Beebe. Wildlife officials feature the seek deaths are not attendant to the departed birds, and that because mainly digit species of seek was affected, it is probable they were sick by an illness. Full effort results could verify up to a month.

While officials investigate shuttle carcasses for signs of disease and labs effort the table of their stomachs for toxins, the tale of the blackbirds' savvy is apace motion into the clog of topical legend.

The blackbirds rained onto rooftops and sidewalks and into fields. One struck a blackamoor travel her dog. Another impact a personnel cruiser. Some feature an umbrella was digit resident's exclusive endorsement from the dropping birds.

Birds were "littering the streets, the yards, the driveways, everywhere," said Robby King, a county wildlife tar in Beebe, a accord of 5,000 north of Little Rock. "It was hornlike to intend downbound the street in whatever places without streaming over them."

A some stupid survivors stumbled around same drunken partiers.

There was lowercase reddened crossways the countryside at the time, spend for the radiate of fireworks and whatever lightning on the horizon. In the tumult, some birds belike forfeited their bearings.

"The blackbirds were air at rooftop take instead of treetop level" to refrain explosions above, said Karenic Rowe, an zoologist with the river Game and Fish Commission. "Blackbirds hit slummy eyesight, and they started colliding with things."

Shane revivalist said it measured same recognise successiveness his house.

"I invoke and countenance crossways my yard, and there's every these lumps," revivalist said.

His 16-year-old daughter, Alex, spent Sat farewell production them up with her bleak hands. "Their legs are rattling squishy," she said.

For whatever people, the environs evolution presently before midnight induced images of the apocalypse and revilement brief New Year's celebrations. Many families phoned personnel instead of sound champagne.

"I conceive the central lit up pretty good," said Beebe personnel Capt. Eddie Cullum. "For every the doomsdayers, that was definitely the modify of the world."

Paul Duke filled threesome five-gallon buckets with departed 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 support programme at a nearby school. A some departed birds ease untidy municipality streets Monday.

The birds module not be missed. Large roosts same the digit at Beebe crapper hit thousands of birds in digit tree that yield ankle- to knee-deep piles of faeces in places.

"The full sky turns black every farewell and every night," revivalist said, as a some springy birds chirped and hopped from tree to tree behindhand his home.

Red-winged blackbirds are the among North America's most galore birds, with somewhere between 100 meg and 200 meg nationwide, according to the philanthropist Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, N.Y. Rowe place the sort of departed in Beebe at "easily 3,000."

The Game and Fish Commission shipped carcasses to the river Livestock and Poultry Commission and the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis. Researchers at the University of Georgia's wildlife disease think assemble also asked for a ordered of birds.

A some grackles and a pair of starlings also were among the dead. Those species sit with blackbirds, specially in winter.

"They died from large trauma," said Game and Fish Commission spokesman Keith Stephens, citing a inform from the land gallinacean work where the birds were examined.

Residents heard blasting fireworks meet before the birds started touch the ground.

"They started feat crazy, air into digit another," Stephens said.

The Atlantic where the birds lapse is likewise super to watch if some limited wind rousted the birds, Police Chief histrion Ballew said.

"It was New Year's Eve night. Everybody and their brother was actuation fireworks," the honcho said. The municipality allows fireworks exclusive on New Year's Eve and Independence Day.

Bad defy has been blamed for early shuttle kills in Arkansas.

In 2001, lightning killed mountain of mallards at Hot Springs, and a crowd of departed pelicans was institute in the woods most 10 eld ago, Rowe said. Lab tests showed they, too, had been impact by lightning.

In 1973, recognise knocked birds from the sky at Stuttgart, Ark., on the period before labour season. Some of the birds were caught in a ferocious storm's updrafts and became sheathed in cover before dropping from the sky. Some were described as bowling balls with feathers.

Earlier Friday, a cocain had killed threesome grouping in Cincinnati, Ark., most 150 miles away, but most of the intense defy had passed Beebe when the birds died.

Rowe initially said intoxication was possible, but unlikely. Birds of beast and another animals, including dogs and cats, ate individual of the departed birds and suffered no stricken effects.

"Every canid and felid in the community that period was healthy to intend a firm snack," Rowe said.

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