Mysterious Bird Deaths Solved

It was just a little over a year ago that folks were inundated with the disconcerting news concerning the overwhelming number of dead birds mysteriously falling from the sky in Arkansas, Texas and Sweden. As a result of these strange happenings, all sorts of theories abounded ranging from a shift in the Earth’s magnetism to people believing that the world was coming to an end.

With such wild theories circulating, it was probably quite a let-down for conspiracy advocates and other less scientifically oriented folks to learn that the strange happenings could be logically explained. More likely than not, the cause of the mysterious bird deaths in Arkansas was fireworks. This resulted in the birds becoming disoriented and in turn caused them to fall into various structures or buildings.

With the events from the Arkansas episode still fresh in our mind from a year ago, what could be more perfect timing for AOL’s “Moviefone” to feature an interesting story on their website about Alfred Hitchcock’s terrifying film, “The Birds”, and the real-life environmental mystery behind it? In reality,   Hitchcock’s shocking film was based on an incident in 1961 in Monterey Bay, California, where numbers of seabirds, like avian missiles, crashed into houses.

In the real life “Birds” incident, scientists contended that the birds were not actually being aggressive or suicidal. Rather, the birds from the Monterey Bay incident were, as a USA Today story cited, found to be poisoned. After a team of ocean environmental scientists led by Sibel Bargu of the Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge examined the stomach contents of turtles and seabirds in the area, a shocking discovery was made. It was found that toxin-making algae were present in 79% of the plankton that the animals of the region consumed at that time.  

So what actually happened that caused the mysterious bird deaths in 1961? After investigation, scientists have put together a chain of lethal events; they believe that the birds fed on anchovies that fed on the contaminated plankton, which ultimately culminated in the ingestion of toxic chemicals. They believe the plankton became tainted by leaking septic tanks in the area.

Like the Arkansas episode, the real life mystery behind Hitchcock’s “The Birds” demonstrates the delicate balance of the ecology of our environment. It seems to this writer that all of these unfortunate events resulted from grievous human errors. What do you think? Tell us in a comment.