What is going on?

05.01.2011

 

What is going on?

The bird and fish kills are not, apparently, isolated incidents in the United States of America, nor indeed in the region. In recent days there have been several. What exactly is going on?

The sudden plummeting to the ground of thousands of red-winged blackbirds in Beebe, Arkansas on New Year's Eve grabbed the headlines around the world. However, this came after a horrific mass fish kill of 100,000 drum fish in the same State 160 km away on December 30, and another mass bird kill on January 3 just south of Arkansas, 500 more birds.

Now we discover than on December 29 in Haiti, scores of fish were found dead in Lake Azuei and since December 24, in the area of Fond Parisien and Malpasse.

And today in Volusia County, Florida, thousands of fish found floating dead in Spruce Creek, Port Orange.  The fish were ladyfish, catfish and mullet. Conflicting reports point towards the weather (the official line is a reaction to the cold), a hypothesis dashed by locals who say it has been mild. As if that were not enough, further north in Chesapeake Bay, lying between Virginia and Maryland, two million fish are reported dead in another kill.

From Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, unconfirmed reports of a cover-up after the authorities were alerted of  a mass kill of tens of thousands of birds today, which were taken away by the authorities and the area closed down.

So, what is going on?

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey