Birds falling out of the sky– that would spook anyone. And reports of bird deaths and fish kills look like a pattern. We need good investigative reporting to put it all in perspective, calling on experts to tell us if we’re in panic time. So turn to CNN–
After thousands of birds mysteriously fell out of the sky in Arkansas on New Year’s Eve, it was only natural that Anderson Cooper turned to an expert for an explanation. Enter Kirk Cameron.
The former “Growing Pains” star — a born-again Christian who has appeared in movies based on the end-of-days-themed “Left Behind” books — appeared on “Anderson Cooper 360” to discuss whether he thought the dead birds were a sign of the apocalypse.
“Well, I first think that they ought to call a veterinarian, not me. You know, I’m not the religious-conspiracy-theorist go-to guy, particularly,” Cameron said. “But I think it’s really kind of silly to try to equate birds falling out of the sky with some kind of an end-times theory.”
Chalk it up to the public’s fascination with doomsday predictions.
Oh yeah. You can’t expect CNN to look for a veterinarian, as Kirk Cameron sensibly suggested, when the public demands the first trumpet of the Apocalypse. Got to give them that infotainment. You got CBN and the 700 Club to compete with.
How much attention will you get with this reality-based analysis from National Geographic?
At any given time there are “at least ten billion birds in North America … and there could be as much as 20 billion—and almost half die each year due to natural causes,” said ornithologist Greg Butcher, director of bird conservation for the National Audubon Society in Washington, D.C.
But what causes dead birds to fall from the sky en masse? The Arkansas case points to two common culprits: loud noises and crashes.
Beginning at roughly 11:30 p.m. on New Year’s Eve Arkansas wildlife officers started hearing reports of birds falling from the sky in a square-mile area of the city of Beebe. Officials estimate that up to 5,000 red-winged blackbirds, European starlings, common grackles, and brown-headed cowbirds fell before midnight.
Results from preliminary testing released Wednesday by the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wisconsin, show the birds died from blunt-force trauma, supporting preliminary findings released by the Arkansas Livestock and Poultry Commission on Monday.
“They collided with cars, trees, buildings, and other stationary objects,” said ornithologist Karen Rowe of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.
“Right before they began to fall, it appears that really loud booms from professional-grade fireworks—10 to 12 of them, a few seconds apart—were reported in the general vicinity of a roost of the birds, flushing them out,” Rowe said.
Booring!
My theory is that UFO’s piloted by space aliens are shining invisible death rays on birds, fish and my philodendrons to hasten the ecological collapse that will alien-form our planet to a hot, dry, carbon-dioxide environment they can colonize.
The public loves UFO stories, and I have some time. CNN, I’m ready for my screen test, you can reach me here.
Recurring Nightmare 
Dear ninjanurse, I would love to see you on national tv talking about anything you choose.
And I love that Kirk Cameron quote.
The big question is: What happened to your philodendrons ? My condolences.
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Mass mortalities among animals and plants have long been known with a diverse set of causes. Words have meaning, stories about “birds falling out of the sky,” of fish that die in water, need to be defined and refined. Except for non-flying birds, birds tend to be found in the sky unless they come to earth in a planned or unplanned descent. Fish are mostly found in the water and if they die, they usually die in the water. Mass mortality brings to mind numbers that may vary: the mass mortality of bacteria, for example, may mean billions in a minute, but does 100 birds or 1000 really constitute a mass mortality: there are some 100,000 Canadian Geese wintering over on the bosque just south of me I am told. Hail and ice pelting a flock of blackbirds at 1000 feet can cause havoc. Fish that are frequently pH or water temperature or water flow rate dependent can die if for instance a major rainstorm upstream flushes enormous amounts of lower pH water at great volume and speed into their habitat.
I have nothing against CNN consulting veternarians. Heck, I depend on them all the time for what ails my horses. But questions of science require a bit more knowledge of the world than most “vets” or for that matter doctors who only look at humans bring to the table. There is one particular character I see constantly consulted on television news programs as an expert, who calls himself, “the science guy,” but then relates the caveat that he is not a scientist!
Of course, UFO encounters may explain it all–kind of like the Greek plays where at the end the gods step in and tie the story up, neatly. Or perhaps the folks in Roswell are correct and it is all because of aliens and UFO technology.
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Right on ninjanurse!
Why take the time to examine the reports?
Why not gather evidence, consult sources, and make a decision based on the weight of the evidence collected? Fox news, in particular, and the media in general would find that time consuming and unfair. Unfair? Yes. There isn’t enough time between commercials to wrestle with an issue.
Much easier to shoot the puzzle over to intellectual luminaries like Anderson Cooper. What a great country we are becoming. Shallow-minded loud mouths abound.
We are devolving.
Maureen McHugh, in her SF novel “China Mountain Zhang” set the story within the context of a world, in the near future, where China was the dominant force. I liked the story a lot and admired her writing, though I did scoff lightly at the idea of Chinese dominance.
Now, I’m not to sure. My confidence is shaken.
Pax,
neophytethegrey1
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