What Cataclysm Killed the Birds in Arkansas (and Louisiana, and Sweden)? Maybe None
If 5,000 birds die in a forest and no one is around to find them, does it still become a media sensation? When 5,000 dead red-winged blackbirds dropped from the sky in Beebe, Ark., on New Year's Eve, ornithologists were puzzled and witnesses were understandably unsettled. But when another 500 birds were found littering a stretch of asphalt in Louisiana three days later, the media started connecting dots between the incidents as well as 85,000 drum fish found dead in the Arkansas River the day before (since then, mass fish deaths have made headlines in the Chesapeake Bay, Brazil, and New Zealand). Then more "bird death events" emerged: Kentucky, Sweden, Texas - anywhere a handful of birds turned up dead, another thread in the great bird death mystery of 2011 was spun. The conspiracy theorizing and outlandish fear mongering kicked into high gear. Initial reports on the Beebe deaths blamed the weather,...