Dead birds and doomsday scenarios

Dead birds are collected in Arkansas on the first day of 2011.

So the dead blackbirds that fell out of the sky in Arkansas just as 2011 was dawning really freaked people out. The fact that the area experienced some pretty horrible weather (including a tornado) and the birds died of blunt trauma to their organs – giving us a pretty plausible explanation – did not seem enough to stop frenzied speculation online about some looming apocalypse or doomsday scenario. The dead fish that washed up on the banks of a river at about the same time didn’t help matters.

Now, I like a good apocalyptic yarn as much as the next person (especially starring Jake Gyllenhaal or at least John Cusack), but let’s put the incident in perspective. A quick Google search will tell you that this sort of thing is actually not a rare occurrence. In fact, I was quite shocked by how often it happens. Here’s a brief list to give you an idea (beware, most of the reports contain yawnsome Hitchcock references and tedious use of adjectives like bizarre and mysterious).

• March 2010: Dozens of dead birds are found in just one suburban garden in Somerset, UK.
• June 2009: More than 200 ibises, ravens, ducks, and gulls are found dead near Perth.
• January 2009: Thousands of dead starlings and blackbirds come hurtling down from the heavens in New Jersey.
• January 2007: Thousands of crows, pigeons, wattles and honeyeaters fall out of the sky in Esperance in Western Australia. Dead grackles, sparrows and pigeons are found in the streets of Austin, Texas.

And then there’s Jatinga, a village located in the Assam State in India, where entire flocks of different birds regularly plunge to their deaths at the end of the monsoon months (a phenomenon that’s still being researched but is probably related to weather conditions). 

So do I think the latest Arkansas incident is a sign that the end of the world is here? I don’t. Do I think the planet’s birds are in trouble? I do. Thanks to our liberal use of toxic pesticides, our careful obliteration of their habitat, our love of plastic and oil, and our general disregard for the environment, we’ve ensured that 13% of all bird species are now facing extinction. There is nothing mysterious about this figure. It’s not an ornithological conundrum. Maybe we should tear ourselves away from the soothsaying for a second and face some hard facts.