Hundreds more birds found dead, this time in Louisiana
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Three days after thousands of blackbirds were found dead in Arkansas, some 500 red-winged-blackbirds and starlings were found dead along a quarter-mile stretch of highway in Louisiana, hundreds of miles to the south.
The Associated Press reports that the latest dead birds were found Monday near Labarre, about 300 miles south of Beebe, Ark., where thousands of birds fell from the sky on New Year's Eve.
State biologists are sending some of the Louisiana birds for testing in Georgia and Wisconsin.
Preliminary necropsies on the dead birds in Arkansas "showed trauma," said Karen Rowe, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission ornithologist. "The birds obviously hit something very hard and had hemorrhages." Beyond that, all the birds were healthy.
Among the speculation for the cause of death is that loud noises, perhaps from fireworks, frightened the birds and sent them crashed into buildings and other obstacles.
(Posted by Doug Stanglin)
