Hundreds Of Dead Sonoma Birds Likely Hit By Truck
GEYSERVILLE (CBS 5 / AP / BCN) ― More than 100 birds found dead just off Highway 101 in Sonoma County were likely hit by a truck, California wildlife officials said Tuesday.
Department of Fish and Game spokesman Andrew Hughan indicated that necropsies of the European black starlings - small birds with brown and black feathers - showed they suffered broken necks. Investigators found no signs of gunshots or disease and said the birds were intact.
"It looks like a large case of roadkill, essentially," Hughan said. "One witness and the evidence supports that a large flock of these birds were forming in a group, like a school of fish going around the sky, and flew too low and hit a semi truck."
California Highway Patrol officers found the dead birds clustered together Saturday near Highway 101 and Independence Lane between Healdsburg and Geyserville. They called in state wildlife authorities to investigate.
The driver of the big-rig that apparently struck the birds did not stop, and was not required to because no traffic violation occurred, Hughan said.
"But I'm surprised he didn't stop because of the amount of bird goo all over the front of his truck," he said.
Hughan indicated that roughly a dozen of the birds would be sent to a state lab in Sacramento for further tests to rule out any other causes of death.
European black starlings are a non-native, invasive species that is "a pretty harmful pest" to the grape crops in the North Bay, Hughan said.
The birds are about 6 inches long and weigh about a pound, he added.
The discovery in Sonoma County followed reports in recent weeks of other, larger bird deaths en masse elsewhere in the country -- events some media outlets dubbed the "Aflockalypse." But the case in Sonoma County appeared to simply be an instance of birds flying too close to a roadway, Hughan said.
Scientists observed that mass die offs of wildlife happen regularly, and are usually unrelated and unreported.
The death of up to 5,000 birds in Arkansas on New Year's Eve has been attributed to loud noises from fireworks that frightened the birds and forced them to fly at a lower altitude than normal, hitting houses, trees and other objects, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Impact from trauma is also suspected in the deaths of about 500 birds in Louisiana on Jan. 3, the USGS concluded.
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