Mass bird deaths easily explained by biologists

Reports of massive bird deaths came from Kentucky, Arkansas, Tennessee and Louisiana. It may seem odd that a large number of dead birds are falling out of the sky across the U.S. In fact, zoologist and bird watcher Brainard Palmer-Ball told environmental reporter James Bruggers of The Courier-Journal, "It's just people noticing them."

Several thousand red-winged blackbirds died on New Year's Eve in Beebe, Ark. Russell Skoglund, a Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency biologist, told reporter Anne Paine of The Tennessean that 150 grackles were found beside a road near Lebanon, Tenn. Last week in Murray, Ky., about 200 grackles, cowbirds, starlings and red-winged blackbirds died within a couple of blocks of each other.(Photo: Stephen Thornton, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)

Authorities sent a sampling of the birds to a lab for testing, and so far have nothing conclusive, reports Bruggers. Mark Marraccini, a spokesman for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources, said. "All of our biologists say this is something that sometimes occurs in nature." (Read more)

Darryl Fears of The Washington Post also reports the most plausible explanations for these recent animal deaths. It's not Biblical plagues or the end of the world as predicted in the Mayan calendar. Each has a very earthly explanation and is not at all surprising to biologists. The Post published a map of mass bird deaths in the U.S. from 2000-2010.