In a central Arkansas town, it is estimated that about 2,000 red-winged black birds fell dead out of the sky, spurring conspiracy and end of time theories from all over the world. In the town of Beebe, around 40 miles northeast of Little Rock, birds dropped out of the sky on Friday over a one mile radius of the town. Mike Robertson, the mayor in Beebe, told The Associated Press the last dead bird was removed about 11 a.m. on Sunday by workers from the U.S. Environmental Services who donned protective gear for the task. However, 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 early speculation on the cause is not focusing on disease or poisoning.
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. Arkansas Game and Fish Commission ornithologist Karen Rowe said Saturday the birds showed physical trauma, and speculated that "the flock could have been hit by lightning or high-altitude hail." Some are also suggesting that fireworks on New Year’s Eve may be to blame for startling the birds and causing them to die of stress. Robby King, a wildlife officer for the commission, 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, Wisconsin. According to the Associated Press, approximately 500 more dead birds have fallen from the sky in Louisiana about 300 miles south of Beebe. The birds were found scattered along a quarter-mile portion of highway in Point Coupee Parish.
To add more fuel to this conspiracy fire, there was an earlier strange incident in Arkansas where an estimated 100,000 fish were found dead in northwest Arkansas. Meanwhile, residents of these towns are fearful. Although the government insists that they have nothing to worry about, they see the government clean-up workers in protective suits. Some people believe that government testing is more likely the case rather than some extreme weather that is being attributed to the events so far. "There was probably some physical reason, but I doubt anyone will ever know what it was," Thurman Booth, Arkansas’ wildlife services director, told CBS. In the meantime more incidents occurred in Australia and Sweden.
