birds dying

[witzend]

The I-5 bridge across the Columbia River is inundated this time of year with starlings. (I can't stand starlings.) They ruin the paint and cause rust. The past several years they have been setting off cannon fire several times a day to disperse them. Obviously no cannon balls, but that's what they call these things. I could be wrong, but I believe they said yesterday on the news that in previous years the estimates were at 8,000 to 10,000 birds alighting at a time, and that it is now nearer 4,000. So they are adding more cannon fire. There has never been any report of birds flying into each other. They just dislike the sound and don't come back there to roost.

 

[TerryJ2]

Hmm. Sounds like residents in those states should be lacing the wild bird feed with-hormones to reduce egg laying. Ankle deep do-doo?
I'll keep my eyes open for news updates.

 

[HaoZi]

Problem with that is you can also easily cause problems for other species, some of which might be endangered or on the verge of becoming so already.

 

[witzend]

Hmm. Sounds like residents in those states should be lacing the wild bird feed with-hormones to reduce egg laying. Ankle deep do-doo?
I'll keep my eyes open for news updates.

That would be a disaster. You can't keep birds away from bird feed, you'd destroy the population of all of the birds. With the bee population already falling apart, you'd literally be taking your life in your hands as far as pollination was concerned.

 

[Jena]

best is they "the birds" died from blunt trauma........... lol according to CNN. yea ok who wouldnt' be it a bird or anything if they hit the land from that altitude?? duhhh really?? LOL

they can't figure it out they tested them. in a one mile radius also so perfectly aligned in one particular area? and now their stating Lousiana also is finding dead birds??

HMM is all i can say I hope they dont' start dropping in Oregon LOL.

 

[Marguerite]

Sounds like Hitchcock in reverse...

Marg

 

[HaoZi]

I don't know, I wanted to drop dead every time I traveled through Louisiana, too.

 

[klmno]

LOL! It wasn't my favorite state either although I've only been once- but now I have to go again for a couple of days. I'm hoping the weather will be better and I'll enjoy it more this time.

 

[donna723]

I wonder if the numbers if them haven't increased drastically in the last few years. And then maybe when they're flying around in such huge flocks, there are so many of them that they're running in to each other and the power lines and trees and buildings? Makes more sense than fireworks anyway! In the winter I've seen trees here that are so full of blackbirds that, from a distance, it looks like the trees are fully leafed out, but it's just a solid mass of birds! Then it looks like a big black cloud flying off and you can see the bare tree branches.

 

[DammitJanet]

Yeah, I might be tempted to run into myself in Louisiana too...lol.

Did you all hear about the massive dead fish on the beaches in NC? Small little town had literally thousands of dead menhaden fish. This town is near the border of NC/SC. I wont say this is such a strange thing though. It has happened before. Its just strange that it happened at the same time as all the other dead stuff.

 

[HaoZi]

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/01/0...google-maps-numerous-incidents/?iref=obinsite

 

[Marguerite]

It mentioned deaths of fish in Australia - unless it was in a trawler's nets, I haven't heard tat one and I live here. I think tis is now getting out of hand with unsubstantiated rumours being published as having actually happened.

Marg

 

[HaoZi]

The ones in Aus are attributed to the flooding.

 

[Marguerite]

OK, that makes sense. I saw a photo of a fish stranded on the highway as the water began to recede. But that is commonsense. It is not linked to anything else, other than the flooding. There is nothing mysterious about dead fish stranded after a flood!

Marg

 

[HaoZi]

I agree with you Marg, they should stick to things that are more mysterious and/or human caused.

 

[Marguerite]

Stop press: we heard on the news this morning about fish deaths on the NSW south coast. They think it's due to algal bloom but won't know for sure until test results are back. Makes sense though - we get a lot of algal blooms after floods have washed fertiliser from farms, out to sea. It feeds the red tides, then fish die.

Marg