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.

Robby King, a wildlife officer for the agency, collected about 65 dead birds, which will be sent for testing to the state Livestock and Poultry Commission lab and the National Wildlife Health Center lab in Madison, Wis.

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

Bush? Haliburton­? or BP?

What's the consensus here?

i figured you would blame bush and chaney, another lady would say it's the racists, and i blame the aliens from the movie "mars attacks" that hate birds...

Seriusly this is weird. I suppose you have to ask yourself what logicly could kill all these birds and knock them out of the sky. None of the answers I give myself seem to be natural causes.

Yea, it is odd...they said there was trauma to the birds, so maybe they got caught in the fireworks? there is a bit more here... http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/WaterCooler/wireStory?id=12521727

Every time $arah Palin Tweets, a bird dies.

UFOs or chemtrails?

First Birds Fall, Now 100,000 Fish Dead in ArkansasJan 3, 2011 – 11:13 AM
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Mara Gay
Contributor
Thousands of dead fish have turned up in an Arkansas river just days after 3,000 birds mysteriously dropped dead from the sky, but authorities say the deaths are not related.

An estimated 100,000 dead drum fish are floating along a 20-mile stretch of the Arkansas River and washing up on the river's banks near the town of Ozark in the northwestern part of the state.

The dead fish were discovered just after 3,000 red-wing blackbirds fell from the sky in the town of Beebe, more than 100 miles from the site of the dead fish. Officials, who tripled the early estimates of the number of dead birds, said the bird deaths may have been caused by lightning or by stress from fireworks and said they were unrelated to the fish kill.
http://www.aolnews.com/2011/01/03/first-birds-fall-now-100-000-fish-dead-in-arkansas/?icid=main%7Chp-desktop%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk1%7C193267

OK so its officaly wierd now

it also sounds like they are lying... the story i posted says there are signs of trauma... does stress cause signs of trauma? i wonder if there is a way to check if there was any thunderstorms there on new years eve night?

I think there is alot of trauma falling from the sky and hitting the ground, I am not realy sure exactly what they are saying by Trauma?

lol just trauma... seems like they being vague on it...

total death toll suspected to be around 6000 blackbirds.

one news source postulated that maybe they were sucked out of trees sleeping during a storm.

we've had several interesting events lately...from the birds to the fish to the earthquakes.

beebe is right down the road from me.

What seems far fetched to me is that We have storms all the time, we have lightening all the time but we dont have birds falling out of the sky all over the place ever that I can recall.

same here.

one man being interviewed was like, "they tell us not to worry, but there's the state police...the game and fish...the mayor...hmm..."

Kinda' weird that the only birds affected were Red-Winged Blackbirds and the only species of fish affected were Drums.

Its all verry bizzare and am verry curiouse as to how this all turns out.

we don't really know that for sure either... all we know is what they decide to tell us

true, but all the birds littering the yards and such appeared to be the same kind.

i doubt seriously that we'll ever truly know what happened. there are already several theories saying that it was government testing and such...

here is the latest from CNN


More than 1,000 blackbirds fell from the sky just before midnight New Year's Eve.

Arkansas game officials hope testing scheduled to begin Monday will solve the mystery of why up to 5,000 birds fell from the sky just before midnight New Year's Eve.

The birds -- most of which were dead -- were red-winged blackbirds and starlings, and they were found within a one-mile area of Beebe, about 40 miles northeast of Little Rock, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission said. Birds fell over about a one-mile area, the commission said in a statement.

As of Saturday, between 4,000 and 5,000 birds had been found dead, said Keith Stephens with the commission.

"Shortly after I arrived, there were still birds falling from the sky," said commission wildlife officer Robby King in the statement. He said he collected about 65 dead birds.

The commission said it flew over the area to gauge the scope of the event, and no birds were found outside of the initial one-mile area.

Karen Rowe, an ornithologist for the commission, said the incident is not that unusual and is often caused by a lightning strike or high-altitude hail.

A strong storm system moved through the state earlier in the day Friday.

"It's important to understand that a sick bird can't fly. So whatever happened to these birds happened very quickly," Rowe told CNN Radio on Sunday.

"Something must have caused these birds to flush out of the trees at night, where they're normally just roosting and staying in the treetops ... and then something got them out of the air and caused their death and then they fell to earth," Rowe added.

Officials also speculated that fireworks shot by New Year's revelers in the area might have caused severe stress in the birds. Rowe said Sunday there was evidence that large fireworks may have played a role.

"Initial examinations of a few of the dead birds showed trauma. Whether or not this trauma was from the force of hitting the ground when they fell or from something that contacted them in the air, we don't know," Rowe said.

The dead birds will be sent for testing to labs at the Arkansas Livestock and Poultry Commission and the National Wildlife Health Center in Wisconsin.

The necropsies will begin Monday, Stephens said, and the findings should be available sometime this week.

The city of Beebe has hired U.S. Environmental Services to begin the cleanup and dispose of the dead birds, the commission said. The firm's workers will go door-to-door and pick up birds still in yards and on rooftops.

Its an act of god.......