Massive fish kill + Massive bird kill - in Arkansas

[SpiralHawk]

These two stories, one from LBN and one from GD, have got to somehow be related....

From DU's lbn http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4680823

Massive fish kill blankets Arkansas River

Source: CNN

(CNN) -- Arkansas officials are investigating the death of an estimated 100,000 fish in the state's northwest and 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 Friday 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 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.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/01/02/arkansas.fish.kill /

[SpiralHawk]

1. Bird kill story...

linked from DU'd GD
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x106591


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

More Than 1,000 Dead Birds Plunge From Sky in Arkansas

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BEEBE, Ark. -- Wildlife officials are trying to determine what caused more than 1,000 blackbirds to die and fall from the sky over an Arkansas town.

The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission said Saturday that it began receiving reports about the dead birds about 11:30 p.m. the previous night. The birds fell over a 1-mile area of Beebe, and an aerial survey indicated that no other dead birds were found outside of that area.

Commission ornithologist Karen Rowe said the birds showed physical trauma, and she speculated that "the flock could have been hit by lightning or high-altitude hail."

The commission said that New Year's Eve revelers shooting off fireworks in the area could have startled the birds from their roost and caused them to die from stress.

*snip*

http://www.aolnews.com/2011/01/02/more-than-1-000-dead -...

[iamtechus]

11. The "commission ornithologist" is full of shit.

Red wing blackbirds are tough little birds. When I was a kid living in a small town in Kansas, thousands of them would visit us every summer while migrating from somewhere to somewhere else(?). They always stayed for several days before moving on. They liked the little park next to the courthouse and rendered it unusable to humans. They created a birdshit storm and people wouldn't go near the courthouse if they could avoid it.

They were such a nuisance that the city tried a loud siren and firing blanks with firearms to run them off but nothing seemed to scare the little rascals. As far as "high-altitude hail" is concerned, redwing blackbirds aren't exactly high altitude flyers (ROTFL).

What should be considered is chemical warfare agents. In the mid-1960s, there was a series of mysterious mass-killings of livestock in Utah and southern Colorado. Whole flocks of sheep were wiped out. Whatever caused it apparently left no traces in the victims' blood.

Investigators finally pinned the problem on the Army's chemical weapons facility in Dugway, Utah. There had been incidents of nerve gas escaping during testing or manufacturing and the gas was blown away from the base by the wind into farming and ranching areas.

[TheMadMonk]

12. May well be full of it. Most people are. However, the specificity...

...of the species affected in both cases suggest that it's not a general threat of any type. And chances are that the two events are not related in any way except very vaguely geographically.

A tornado (even one that never grounds) could make a real mess of a flock of birds, as could the posited high level hail, or even just a simple strong updraft. Exactly the same things that occasionally cause a rain of frogs or fish, could conceivably also bring about a "rain of birds".

[Savage1]

15. tornado bird theory

Lets keep in mind that tornadoes cruised through the general area on the day before the New Year. I am skeptical that a tornado was invisibly whirling above the area for the whole a day or better just to back up a bit, then later go over Beebe to drop off specifically red-wing black birds.

[Savage1]

14. bird shit Bird & Game Commissioner

Agree... Drum Fish and Red-wing Blackbirds are not exactly the weakest links in the evolutionary chain... there is more behind this then what is being said. The "test results" are back already, so it is said, and with no sign of any pollution being the culprit. Well, I worked for many years in a laboratory doing environmental testing and I would have to say the TAT (turn-a-round) times is rather amazing considering the seriousness of the matter. How many chemicals are there on the planet that are harmful? How is it then that in a mere day, that a final verdict can be uttered from anyone sane?

What are/were the test parameters, where are the certified test results from multiple independent laboratories? Where is the QA/QC... quality assurance / quality control results?

There was no noise nor damn fog to screw up the birds. There was no lighting that took them down (if so, where are the high resolution photographs showing the burn marks...don't give me the shit about the birds being black already.) Where are the independent autopsies proving electrical shock? No the blackbirds did not fall to there deaths from being startled to death from fireworks from out of a large imaginary tree hovering over Beebe. Where the hell was the storm that allegedly could have sucked up the birds into the heavens and plastered the birds with hail in high altitudes?

[Ruby the Liberal]

2. When I heard about these incidents, Corexit was the first thing that came to mind.

I so, so, so hope I am wrong and there is another explanation.

This on the heels of those tornadoes and earthquake swarms they have had. SMH

[Whoa_Nelly]

4. +1

same here GMTA ;) :hi:

on edit: See that you beat me by a minute (or less!) :rofl: Good one!

[Ruby the Liberal]

9. GMTA!

:cheers:

[hedgehog]

5. Wait - so someone dumped enough Corexit into the river to

kill 10,000 fish from a single species then flew 125 miles away to somehow spray a flock of birds with enough to drop them from the skies? All other considerations aside, why would anyone spend the money to do that?

[Ruby the Liberal]

8. I am thinking more like evaporation and then transport over land via rain/storms.

[kgnu_fan]

10. I think that has been talked about during the BP spill, some scientists said it is like nuclear bomb

[Savage1]

16. money

Good point, but when was that imaginary concept ever an object to such a cheap enterprise.

[Whoa_Nelly]

3. Corexit making it inland?

crazy thought :crazy:

These critters may the canaries in the mine....if so, then what about the people?

Hope this stays in the news as it gets figured out...or if we ever hear the REAL facts about it all.

[valerief]

6. B=blackbirds & P=perch. nt

[Recovered Repug]

7. Kind of sounds like the opening of an X-Files episode. n/t

[ladjf]

13. Not one credible theory has been advanced about this kills. nt