Mystery Animal Deaths Go Global

Less than a week after the New Years Eve mass bird deaths in Arkansas, mystery animal deaths have become a world wide phenomenon, with mass animal deaths now reported in Sweden, Italy, Brazil, New Zealand and England.

Deaths include

• 50 red-winged blackbirds, brown-headed cowbirds, grackles and starlings found littering a highway in Baton Rouge, Louisiana
• 3,000 blackbirds on roofs and roads in the small town of Beebe, Arkansas
• Thousands of ‘devil crabs’ washed up along the Kent coast near Thanet
• Thousands of drum fish washed along a 20-mile stretch of the Arkansas River
• Two million small fish in Chesapeake Bay, Maryland
• Thousands of dead fish found floating in warm Florida creek
• Hundreds of snapper fish found dead in New Zealand
• Scores of American Coots found dead on Texas highway bridge

Fireworks, thunderstorms, cold weather, parasites and even environmental poisoning have been blamed, but it seems something nefarious is at work.