Something awakens in Arkansas, and it's hungry. 100,000 fish and 5,000 birds die

[Karalysia]

State officials on Monday were investigating why 80,000 to 100,000 fish washed up dead on the shores of the Arkansas River last week.

"The fish deaths will take about a month" to determine a cause, Keith Stephens, a spokesman for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, told msnbc.com.

Stephens also provided the estimate of 80,000 to 100,000 dead fish.

The fish were found Thursday by a tugboat operator along a 20-mile stretch of the Arkansas River near the city of Ozark.

The mass kill occurred just one day before thousands of blackbirds dropped dead from the sky in Beebe, Ark., which is 125 miles away.

Officials said 95 percent of the fish that died were drum fish — indicating that the likely cause of death was disease as only one species was affected.

"If it was from a pollutant, it would have affected all of the fish, not just drum fish," Stephens added.

Drum fish, which are bottom feeders, are not sought by fishermen, he added, and fishing was not banned as a precaution. "Right now it's fine to fish," KTHV quoted Stephens as saying. "If you go out there you can still fish for bass and crappie, catfish, it will be fine. Obviously don't eat the dead fish."
Story: Up to 5,000 birds fell from Ark. sky, officials now say

Fish were still floating on the same stretch of river as of Monday morning.

Stephens said that nature will be doing the cleanup. "We'll have raccoon and birds and things like that will take care of it so there is really no cleanup, it's really too big. It's contained along the river channel."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40887450/ns/us_news-environment/

BEEBE, Ark. — The number of birds that fell on this Arkansas town on New Year's Eve night is now estimated at 4,000 to 5,000, a wildlife official told msnbc.com, up sharply from the initial estimate of 1,000.

Keith Stephens, a spokesman for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, provided the new numbers, adding that 65 carcasses of the red-winged blackbirds had been collected and were being tested to determine the cause of death.

"We may have something today" on the cause, he said.

The state Livestock and Poultry Commission Lab and the National Wildlife Health Center Lab in Madison, Wis., are examining the dead birds.

Commission ornithologist Karen Rowe said the flock could have been hit by lightning or high-altitude hail, or may have been startled by fireworks.

Mike Robertson, the mayor in Beebe, said the last dead bird was removed about 11 a.m. Sunday in the town about 40 miles northeast of Little Rock. He said 12 to 15 workers, hired by the city to do the cleanup, wore environmental-protection suits for the task.

The birds had fallen Friday night over a 1-mile area of Beebe, and an aerial survey indicated that no other dead birds were found outside of that area. The workers from U.S. Environmental Services started the cleanup Saturday.

Robertson said the workers wore the suits as a matter of routine and not out of fear that the birds might be contaminated. He said speculation on the cause is not focusing on disease or poisoning.

"It started at 7 a.m., picking up birds on the street, in the yards, been run over. It's just a mess," Beebe Street Department supervisor Milton McCullar told WISC-TV.
Video: In Arkansas, it rained dead birds (on this page)

Several hundred thousand red-winged blackbirds have used a wooded area in the town as a roost for the past several years, he said. Robertson and other officials went to the roost area over the weekend and found no dead birds on the ground.

"That pretty much rules out an illness" or poisoning, the mayor said.

Rowe said Saturday the birds showed physical trauma, and 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 could have startled the birds from their roost and caused them to die from stress.

Safety fears
"I've been to Iraq and back and not seen nothing like this," Beebe resident Jeff Drennan told local Fox16 News on Sunday.

"You know my kids are out here playing and you don't know, is it safe?" he added. "They're walking around with chemical suits picking them up with gas masks and everything."

Another resident, Janis Donahue, told Fox16 that her husband picked up around 35 or 40 birds in their yard alone.

Rowe said similar events have occurred elsewhere and that test results "usually were inconclusive." She said she doubted the birds were poisoned.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40885546/ns/us_news-environment/

I think a good solution would be to abolish the EPA and reduce environmental protections. Then the invisible hand would fix it.

 

[MobBoss]

Hehe, my wife went to school in Beebe for a couple semesters when her dad was trying to break us up. Crazy stuff.

Btw, a drum fish is basically a carp.

 

[bhsup]

I read another news story on the birds and they said the birds had suffered physical trauma. Lighting high in the atmosphere or a high altitude hail storm were suggested as possible causes of the bird deaths.

Alternatively, they saw TurboTax's commercial and bought it in hopes of it helping them navigate...

 

[BammBamm]

Bill Clinton must've finally fallen off that Jenny Craig wagon.

 

[Ayatollah So]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40885546/ns/us_news-environment/

65 carcasses of the red-winged blackbirds had been collected and were being tested to determine the cause of death

This can only be a very bad omen for...

[Detroit Red Wings donchaknow]

 

[Xanikk999]

If it's not a pollutant then maybe the culprit is a virus that only affects these specific species?

 

[countrygrl]

I think the EPA is a great thing. But how would the EPA, or getting rid of it, have changed the outcome of this at all?

 

[Xanikk999]

I think the EPA is a great thing. But how would the EPA, or getting rid of it, have changed the outcome of this at all?

It wouldn't have.

Making regulations and laws is one thing. Preventing the disobedience of these laws is another.

Assuming this is a result of a human caused incident, it is likely unavoidable if the incident causing this disaster was a result of humans disobeying regulations.

Of course I am just assuming one scenario here.

 

[Narz]

I think a good solution would be to abolish the EPA and reduce environmental protections. Then the invisible hand would fix it.

I agree. While we're at it, lets ban teachers in schools & let advertising execs from big corporations teach children directly about their important role in the Market! Why should the govt. decide what our children learn, let the Market choose!!

 

[countrygrl]

It wouldn't have.

Making regulations and laws is one thing. Preventing the disobedience of these laws is another.

Assuming this is a result of a human caused incident, it is likely unavoidable if the incident causing this disaster was a result of humans disobeying regulations.

Of course I am just assuming one scenario here.

But there is no indication in either of those articles that this was caused by humans.

 

[Dachs]

thread title is friggin incoherent

 

[Bill3000]

I think he meant "Something"?

 

[Dachs]

"A 5,000 bird" was also pretty weird

 

[Kraznaya]

Drug abuse is like a sin or something

 

[Glassfan]

Watch out, It's, ... The Ohio State Buckeyes!!!!!!!!!!

 

[FriendlyFire]

I read another news story on the birds and they said the birds had suffered physical trauma. Lighting high in the atmosphere or a high altitude hail storm were suggested as possible causes of the bird deaths.

How do you explain the all the dead fish ?

 

[bhsup]

How do you explain the all the dead fish ?

Me? I don't. I simply passed along what someone else had mentioned about the birds.

I suppose Revelation 16:3?
"And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea"

 

[Incodcito]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40887450/ns/us_news-environment/

Sometime awakens in Arkansas, and it's hungry. 100,000 fish and a 5,000 bird die

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40885546/ns/us_news-environment/

I think a good solution would be to abolish the EPA and reduce environmental protections. Then the invisible hand would fix it.

Spoiler :

 

[GoodGame]

Invisible causes? Probably chemicals or viruses.

 

[Rashiminos]

My top two bets are either pfiesteria (or something similar) or spreading oil spill cleanup contaminants.