14 DAY TRIAL // The city of Beebe was surprised to see as many as 2,000 blackbirds falling from the skies on New Year's Eve, about 30 minutes before the clock struck midnight. As celebrations were ongoing, dead or dying blackbirds began falling from the sky within the city limits.
Generally, it's uncommon for clouds to rain birds, but not unheard of. There is a large variety of reasons why birds fell from the sky, and a large number of circumstances in which this happens.
For example, some species may simply fly following their leaders until they get exhausted, and are unable to continue their journey. They then collapse from the sky to meet their end.
In other instances, violent thunderstorms unleash large volumes of hail into flying flocks, hitting many of them in the wings, and forcing them to crashland. But the death of the blackbirds that fell in Arkansas may be a little more mundane than that.
According to the early conclusions of investigators, it could be that party people in the city may have been responsible for the death of the birds. Some of the animals were still alive, yet unable to fly, when emergency crews first responded in the area where the flock fell.
“Beginning at around 11:30 pm, enforcement officers with Arkansas Game and Fish Commission (AGFC) began getting reports of dead black birds falling from the sky in the city limits of Beebe,” an AGFC statement explains.
“Something out of a movie and Hazmat people are walking around not telling us anything,” one eyewitness reported from the scene. “I'd like to know. Kind of spooky, you never know what's going to happen,” another witness replied.
The bodies of the dead birds covered a 1 square mile area of the city. Initial reports indicated that the number of dead animals is just over 1,000, whereas later ones hint that a lot more blackbirds died.
Helicopter investigations of the affected area revealed no signs of birds falling in other locations. It could be, experts say, the that noises made by the crowd of people and fireworks scared the birds.
Once they flew from their nests, they remained airborne, and eventually died of stress, as evidenced by the relatively large number of animals that made it to the ground alive.
“Shortly after I arrived there were still birds falling from the sky,” AGFC wildlife officer Robby King reports. The expert collected 65 dead birds for sampling.
The data will be sent to the Arkansas Livestock and Poultry Commission lab, and also to the National Wildlife Health Center lab in Madison, Wisconsin, for in-depth analysis.
“Since it only involved a flock of blackbirds and only involved them falling out of the sky it is unlikely they were poisoned, but a necropsy is the only way to determine if the birds died from trauma or toxin,” concludes AGFC ornithologist Karen Rowe, quoted by LiveScience.