About 4,000 to 5,000 birds die and fall from the sky of Arkansas. The red-winged blackbirds had fallen on New Year’s Eve night over a 2-kilometer area of Beebe, Arkansas.
Officials ruled out poisoning or illness because there were no dead birds found on the ground of a wooden area in the town used by the birds as a roost for the past several years.
Karen Rowe, an ornithologist for Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, said that the birds showed physical trauma and speculated that the flock could have been hit by a lightning strike or high-altitude hail.
Officials speculated that the cause of trauma to thousands of dead birds in Arkansas were large fireworks during New Year’s Eve.
Examination of the dead birds will start on Monday at the state Livestock and Poultry Commission lab and the National Wildlife Health Center lab in Madison, Wis.
