What's behind the mysterious death of more than two dozens birds in downtown Pensacola?

Kevin Robinson Pensacola News Journal

Published 8:00 AM EST Feb 8, 2020

More than two dozen birds were found dead on a Pensacola sidewalk Friday, and there are no immediate answers as to why.

The birds were concentrated at the southeast corner of Jefferson and Intendencia streets, though people reported others on surroundings streets and canopies. A crowd of stunned, heartbroken onlookers gathered and tried to puzzle out among themselves what happened.

Phillip Darby, a professor of wildlife ecology at the University of West Florida, didn't see the carnage first-hand, but he said his educated guess was that the birds had crashed into a building.

He said birds tend to follow a pretty set migratory path, and that if there is new construction along the route — particularly large buildings with lots of glass — birds can be disoriented by reflections of trees or the sky and crash into them as a flock.

Still, onlookers at nearby businesses said they hadn't heard any collision, and there didn't seemed to be any visible damage to windows.

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‘Unusual’ number of snowy plovers found dead in riding areas of Oceano Dunes last month

BY KAYTLYN LESLIE

SEPTEMBER 08, 2019 05:00 AM, UPDATED SEPTEMBER 08, 2019 12:00 PM

State Parks is urging riders to be cautious in the Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area after an “unusual number” of protected snowy plovers were found dead in the riding area of the park last month.

Four snowy plovers were found dead in the SVRA park in the final weeks of August, according to Senior Environmental Scientist Ronnie Glick.

“It is unusual to have that many birds found in the course of a short time period,” Glick told The Tribune in a phone interview Friday.

The four were found between Aug. 19 and Aug. 28. According to Glick, one of the bodies found was too old to be able to determine the cause, while the other three were fresher specimens.

Two of the birds were found in tire tracks in the sand, with evidence of being flattened, while another was found in an area with recent tire tracks, but not in said tracks, according to reports filed with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

“If a bird were to be hit, it would be a violation of the Endangered Species Act, and that is a big deal,” Glick said. “Unfortunately, we don’t have a big enough staff to watch all these birds every hour of the day.”

If someone were visibly observed by a State Parks worker to hit a snowy plover — something that Glick said he did not believe had ever happened at the park — law enforcement would be called in to determine if if that person were driving negligently or in violation of any of the park’s rules.

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Thousands of birds found dead in WA's 'most important' inland wetland

By Hannah Barry

22 January 2019 — 3:42pm

Thousands of birds have been found dead at one of Western Australia's most important inland wetlands.

A Department of Primary Industry and Regional Development veterinarian arrived at Lake Gregory in the East Kimberley earlier this month to take sample, and found a number of wild birds in "poor conditions with low body weights".

On a department inspection, it was found several thousand birds had died at the wetland, but the cause of death remains a mystery.

Lake Gregory is a permanent freshwater lake located between the Great Sandy Desert and the Tanami Desert and was previously described by the department as the most important inland wetland in Australia.

Its ecosystem helps support about 650,000 waterbirds and is a major breeding ground for up to 80 species and a major migration stopover area for shorebirds.

It supports more than 1 per cent of the world population of pink-eared ducks; the same species believed to have been found dead. A number of black swans also died.

A department investigation excluded bird flu and Newcastle disease as a cause of death, but later identified the presence of blue-green algae close to the lake.

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A group of Highland villages are luring hundreds of threatened bird species potentially to their deaths

by Reporter

 October 3, 2018, 5:58 am

A new scientific paper has explained why bright lights in a group of Highland villages are luring hundreds of a threatened bird species potentially to their deaths – and a lot is due to the moon, or lack of it.

It also says the research could lead to council street lights being dimmed at key migration times – especially on moonless nights.

More than four times as many Manx shearwaters were rescued in and around Mallaig in September than in the whole of the last migration season.

Around 400 this year have clattered into homes in the Mallaig, Arisaig and Morar area.

The bright light danger faced by Manx shearwaters comes at the very start of their incredible 6,000-mile journey.

The chicks fledge from the mountains of the Isle of Rum before flying to their wintering grounds in South America.

However each year some of the young birds can become disorientated by outside lights left on in Kinloch on Rum and surrounding villages, but particularly Mallaig on the mainland.

They often crash land close to the light source and many are then killed by gulls, crows, cats or dogs.

Now a paper published in the Ibis International Journal of Avian Science has revealed that the moon and wind play a huge part in the birds’ demise.

“A model was developed that used meteorological variables and moon cycle to predict the daily quantity of birds that were recovered on the ground. The model, explaining 46.32% of the variance of the data, revealed how new moon and strong onshore winds influence grounding,” says the report.

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CZECH BIRDS ARE THREATENED BY DEADLY AFRICAN DISEASE

 Ruth Fraňková

 11-09-2018

The outbreak of a dangerous African bird disease is killing blackbirds and other bird species in the Czech Republic. The mosquito-carried Usutu virus has spread to Europe from tropical and subtropical Africa and has been raising the bird toll across the continent. I spoke to Petr Voříšek of the Czech Society for Ornithology and I first asked him to tell me more about the disease.

“We don’t know all the details about the disease. What we know is that it’s a virus. It’s called the Usutu virus, it comes from Africa and it’s transmitted by mosquitoes. 

“The virus is transmitted mostly to birds, but there are also a few cases of the disease being transmitted to humans, but without the deadly consequences. So the most victims, at least here in Europe, are birds, blackbirds in particular.” 

Is this the first time you have detected the disease in the Czech Republic? 

“The first case of the disease was detected in the Czech Republic in 2011. This is the second outbreak, but we can hardly say the disease has not been here before.” 

Could the current outbreak of the disease be connected to the unusually hot and dry summer? 

“This is difficult to say, since mosquitoes usually need some water to develop, on the other hand I think it is almost without any doubt that the spread of this disease and other diseases as well is linked to the climate change. So I can hardly say that it is directly linked this hot and dry summer, but is almost definitely linked to climate change.” 

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Birds are dropping dead off Australia's coast, and it's all our fault

Confronting new images have revealed the cost of Australia's obsession with plastic, with appalled scientists recovering hundreds of fragments from the stomachs of fledgling chicks.

By Nicole Hasham

18 May 2018 — 9:26pm

Deep in their burrows, hungry shearwater chicks on Lord Howe Island await a meal. Their parents have been scouring the sea in search of fish and squid. Instead, they return to feed their babies clothes pegs, bottle tops and Lego pieces.

The flesh-footed sheerwater population at Lord Howe Island is dwindling due to a tidal wave of marine plastic being mistaken for food.

After 90 days the fledglings emerge from their burrows, stomachs bulging with plastic. They prepare for their first flight. Many are so malnourished they die outside the nest. Others make it to the beach, but their undeveloped wings flap in vain and waves engulf them.

Ian Hutton, a naturalist and museum curator on Lord Howe Island, pulls the bodies off the beach. Researchers slice open their stomachs to confirm the cause of death. Once, they found 274 plastic fragments.

“It’s so upsetting to think this bird has been reared by its parents, it’s been fed and it should have a chance to go to sea but it’s died,” he said.

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Hundreds of Birds Killed at Jatinga to Shoot Film!

Birds were allegedly massacred by villagers at the behest of a filmmaker for shooting his documentary

PUBLISHED: 10:19 PM, 24 OCT 2017
UPDATED: 10:09 PM, 24 OCT 2017

 BY:BNE BUREAU

Jatinga, famous for mysterious birds phenomena, turned into a mass killing field for birds on Sunday night, allegedly at the behest of a filmmaker for shooting his documentary.

Bird lovers and locals alleged that documentary filmmaker Ananda had engaged a foreigner to film the killing of birds in Jatinga. Hundreds of birds were killed by villagers in exchange for money given by Ananda, they alleged.

The protection force of the Forest and Environment department immediately rushed to the spot, rescued a few birds and released them. According to ACF Tuhin Langthasa, in-charge of the protection force, a large number of birds visited Jatinga on Sunday but were killed as Ananda, who introduced himself as a documentary filmmaker, encouraged the villagers to put up lights and attract the birds, although there is a ban on using lights during the period when birds migrating over long distances visit Jatinga.

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More than 100 Birds Found Dead in Suncor Tailings Pond

By Dan Healing, The Canadian Press via 660 News

CALGARY – Oilsands giant Suncor Energy says it is mystified by the discovery Sunday of dead and dying birds at a nearly complete northern Alberta mine that hasn’t produced its first official barrel of oil yet.

On Tuesday, the Alberta Energy Regulator announced it was dispatching an inspector to the nearly completed Fort Hills oilsands mine north of Fort McMurray after Suncor reported finding 123 waterfowl and songbirds near a tailings pond.

“On Sunday … a group of birds were discovered in the north end of our Fort Hills tailings area and had to be euthanized,” said Suncor (TSX:SU) spokeswoman Nicole Fisher in an email.

“The majority of birds impacted were horned larks (a migratory species). The larks are not native to the area so we are engaging with wildlife experts as well as the regulator to determine what additional measures we can put in place.”

She said the company has launched an investigation to figure out why the birds were in the area despite the presence of working bird deterrent systems, including cannon, radar and scarecrows.

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Life aloft: The unexplored ecosystem above your head

7 June 2017

We have nature reserves on land and at sea, but the sky has never been considered a habitat, let alone one worth preserving, until now

By Lesley Evans Ogden

THE Federal Bureau of Investigation has a spectacular view of the city skyline from its Chicago office tower. But when special agent Julia Meredith arrived at work one Monday morning, her eyes were focused firmly on the ground. That’s where the bodies were – more than 10 of them.

Some of the dead were Blackburnian warblers, birds with bright yellow and orange plumage that are rarely seen in the city. They had been on their way to their wintering grounds in South America when they had collided with the building’s glass facade. “They had come all this way and here they were, dead,” says Meredith.

It’s not an isolated incident. Just last month, 395 migrating birds were killed in one building strike in Galveston, Texas. The world over, wherever humans are extending their buildings, machines and light into the sky, the lives of aerial creatures are at increasing risk. We don’t have very accurate figures, but in the US, casualties are thought to run into the hundreds of millions every year. Yet while efforts to protect areas on land and in water have accelerated since the 1970s, the sky has been almost entirely ignored.

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Who’s killing Tweety & Sylvester? Birds, cat drop dead mysteriously in Boston

 Published time: 10 Sep, 2016 02:27Edited time: 10 Sep, 2016 03:40

A Boston neighborhood is puzzled. Dozens of birds falling from trees to their deaths, along with a dead cat, are leaving officials guessing what could have caused the inexplicable plague.

"When I arrived, birds would fly, like from a house to a tree, they would flop in the tree and they would fall to the ground,"Alan Borgal of the Animal Rescue League of Boston (ARL) told local NECN news. "The weaker ones were just falling right out the sky." 

Unlike in the cartoons, the chief suspect in the birds' mystery deaths doesn't seem to be a cat (or even vice-versa).

A resident called the ARL Thursday, reporting her cat Sally suddenly falling sick and birds massively falling from the trees at 33 Bakersfield Street in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood.

She described the birds as “lethargic, trying to roll over, not able to stand up or fly.”

The ARL provided treatment to the cat, but the feline ended up dying.

“My sister fed her,” Sally’s owner Willien Pugh told the Boston Herald.“Then like at 8:30 she came to the door and told me Sally was laying there at the back door, and that was it. Nobody knows who did it or nothing.”

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ODNR says bird deaths on I-680 in Youngstown ‘unusual’

Testing reveals none of them suffered from influenza

By WKBN Staff

Published: March 7, 2016, 3:03 pm  Updated: March 7, 2016, 9:51 pm

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) – The mystery as to what a caused the deaths of about 25 crows on Interstate 680 in Youngstown has been solved, for the most part.

It looks as though the birds suffered trauma by being struck by vehicles, according to Ohio Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Technician Laurie Graber.

Graber said the carcasses were sent to a lab in Wisconsin where initial findings indicate the birds suffered trauma that killed them.

Other testing ruled out influenza, but Graber said she is still waiting on results to determine if the birds carried the reovirus, however she doesn’t expect that testing to come back positive.

Graber said there were high winds the day the birds were found and that could have made it hard for them to adjust. She also added that it is very unusual for crows to die this way because they are strong birds.

The crows are part of a large migration that have lived in that area for many years.

Source…

Barbour wind power facility sentenced to $30,000 fine for bird deaths

filed: February 25, 2016 • West Virginia

Credit: By Ken Ward Jr., Staff Writer | Charleston Gazette-Mail | www.wvgazettemail.com 

The owner of a Barbour County wind energy facility has been sentenced to pay $30,000 in fines after pleading guilty to two federal charges related to the deaths in 2011 of hundreds of migratory birds, court records show.

AES Laurel Mountain LLC was sentenced earlier this month by U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael J. Aloi after reaching a plea agreement with U.S. Attorney William Ihlenfeld.

The company was sentenced to pay the maximum fine of $15,000 for each of two misdemeanor counts of “unlawful taking” of migratory birds, a crime under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

Charges were originally filed against AES Laurel Mountain in late January and a sentencing hearing was held on Feb. 12. Copies of legal briefs about the sentencing were placed under seal, and were not available to the public on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia’s online computer system.

The case concerns events in October 2011 at AES Laurel Mountain’s Battery Energy Storage System, or BESS, located near the company’s wind power generation facility at Belington.

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Environmental protection order issued to Syncrude after bird deaths at Alberta oilsands site

By Caley RamsayWeb Producer Global News

The Alberta Energy Regulator says it is investigating reports that approximately 30 blue herons have died at an oilsands site.Jeff McIntosh, The Canadian Press

EDMONTON — Syncrude Canada has been issued an environmental protection order from the Alberta Energy Regulator after 30 blue herons were found dead at its Mildred Lake oilsands mine site last week.

The AER issued the order Tuesday, which requires the company to do the following:

Collect water and soil samples from the site for analysis

Develop a wildlife mitigation plan and detailed delineation and remediation plan

Develop daily public reports and publish them to the Syncrude Canada website

Submit a final report to the AER within 30 days of the completion of all work required in compliance with the order

The AER said Tuesday some of the work had already begun.

The CEO of Syncrude said the company has agreed to comply with all measures of the order.

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Band-tailed pigeons dying on the Central Coast

Jan 30, 2015 9:36 PM by Alexandra Pierce, KSBY News

Hundreds of band-tailed pigeons are dying in Santa Barbara County.

Due to the increased mortality rate the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) is closely monitoring this population.

CDFW's investigators have determined they're dying from Avian Trichomonosis. It's a disease which only infects birds.

People living in the Santa Ynez and Solvang areas are particularly noticing the effects of the disease because these pigeons spend their winters on the coast.

Julia Di Sieno is the Co-Founder and operator of the Animal Rescue Team in Solvang.

Since the day after Christmas she's had hundreds of infected band-tailed pigeons dropped off at her facility bleeding from their eyes and mouths.

"This die-off here is the largest in the entire state at the moment," Di Sieno said.

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Three companies charged after bird kill

SAINT JOHN, N.B. – Three companies now face charges after thousands of birds died in 2013 when they flew into a flare burning at a natural gas facility in Saint John, N.B.

Canaport LNG LP was charged with three violations in October 2014 and two other companies — Irving Canaport GP Company Ltd. and Repsol Canada Ltd. — now also face those charges.

The three companies face two charges under the federal Migratory Birds Convention Act that prevent anyone from depositing a substance harmful to migratory birds.

They are also charged with unlawfully killing Canada warblers under the federal Species at Risk Act.

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NZ First is calling for a moratorium on 1080 poison after a flock of endangered birds went missing following an aerial drop.

19 January 2015 

An aerial drop of 1080 poison could have killed a flock of endangered birds in a South Island national park, says NZ First.

None of the 26 rock wren monitored by Department of Conservation in the Kahurangi National Park have been seen since the aerial drops began in September as part of a $10 million operation across the country.

NZ First's outdoor recreation spokesman Richard Prosser says 1080 appears to be killing the birds it's meant to be protecting.

He's calling for an immediate moratorium on the poison which is used to kill possums, rats, stoats and other animals that threaten our native birds.

"I absolutely agree we need to eliminate predators of our native wildlife, but not at the expense of them," he said.

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PacifiCorp pleads guilty, will pay $2.5M for eagle and other bird deaths at Wyoming wind farms

CHEYENNE, Wyo. - A utility will pay $2.5 million in fines, restitution and community service after pleading guilty to killing golden eagles and other birds at two Wyoming wind farms.

The Migratory Bird Treaty Act violations stem from the deaths of 38 golden eagles and 336 other protected birds at PacifiCorp's Seven Mile Hill and Glenrock/Rolling Hills wind farms in east-central Wyoming.

The company entered the plea Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Wyoming.

The Justice Department and Portland, Oregon-based PacifiCorp announced the agreement Dec. 19. Under the deal, the company agreed to pay fines as well as restitution and community service with a total value of $2.5 million.

- See more at:

Canaport LNG faces charges for bird kill

Environment Canada accuses company of violating laws that protect sensitive and threatened species

By Neville Crabbe, CBC News Posted: Oct 20, 2014 6:29 AM AT Last Updated: Oct 20, 2014 6:29 AM AT

A large number of red-eyed vireos were among the estimated 7,500 migrating songbirds killed by the flare at Canaport LNG in Saint John. (Courtesy of the Migration Research Foundation)

Canaport LNG faces three charges after an estimated 7,500 songbirds flew in to a gas flare at the Saint John plant last September, CBC News has learned.

Kate Shannon, a company spokesperson, confirms Canaport was informed of the charges late last week.

The charges include two alleged violations of the Migratory Birds Convention Act and one from the Species at Risk Act. Each violation carries a maximum fine of $1,000,000 for an indictable offence.

Shannon said the company is considering its options.

"We're currently reviewing the charges as we just received them on Thursday and we will respond in due course," she said.

The charges come one year after federal enforcement officers carried out search warrants at Canaport LNG.

At the time, uniformed Environment Canada officers were monitoring people entering and leaving the facility, but it's unclear what evidence or items were seized.

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SOLAR POWER: Bird deaths in plant's ponds investigated

BY DAVID DANELSKI / STAFF WRITER

Published: Oct. 16, 2014 Updated: 10:28 p.m.

Federal wildlife officials are investigating the deaths this week of as many as 60 birds in water evaporation ponds at the Genesis solar plant in eastern Riverside County.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said the birds apparently got caught up in an oily substance in the ponds at the Genesis solar plant west of Blythe operated by the Florida-based NextEra Energy Resources Co.

The company uses water to clean thousands of curved mirrors and to make steam, though the source of the water in the ponds was not immediately available on Thursday.

It is not known yet what species of birds died, said Jane Hendron, a Carlsbad-based spokeswoman for the wildlife service. “We are still gathering facts,” she said.

NextEra spokesman Steven Stengel said by telephone that 50-60 birds were found dead in two water evaporation ponds on Monday. He said officials with the agency came to the solar plant Wednesday and took possession of the carcasses.

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Seattle housing facility ticketed for bird death

Posted: Sep 13, 2014 1:03 PM GDTUpdated: Sep 13, 2014 1:03 PM GDT

SEATTLE (AP) - A senior housing facility in Seattle has been issued a $375 federal ticket for blowing nesting birds out of an air vent.

The Senior Housing Assistance Group facility at Cedar Park in North Seattle faces a misdemeanor charge of taking, killing or possessing migratory birds, after a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agent said a manager there admitted that maintenance workers in July had "blown out" the vent to remove the birds, which included an adult violet-green swallow and at least three chicks. The adult bird suffered a broken wing and had to be euthanized.

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