I am just as sick of 2020 as you are. Every time I read a news article lately, I think–no way. They must be punking us. At this point, I would welcome a zombie apocalypse, because at least I would know what to expect. Also, I might see Danai Gurira with a sword. That would be nice. Today, you’re not getting zombies–instead, it’s dying birds. A lot of dead birds. Maybe millions. Nothing but the best for you.
Birdemic: The Start of Birds Dying
Professor Martha Desmond works at New Mexico State University. She heads up the Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Ecology.
On August 20th, 2020, she reports, an alarming number of dead birds were found at the US Army White Sands Missile Range and White Sands National Monument. But it didn’t stop there. Soon, dead and dying birds were turning up all over New Mexico.
“The number is in the six figures,” Desmond says, distressed. “Just by looking at the scope of what we’re seeing, we know this is a very large event, hundreds of thousands and maybe even millions of dead birds, and we’re looking at the higher end of that.” (1)
It’s More Than Just Dying
Weirdly, these birds do not belong to a single species. They seem, at present, to all be migratory birds, but there are sparrows, bluebirds, blackbirds, and more. Even stranger, the birds have been exhibiting downright bizarre behavior. While most of the birds usually keep to higher-up places, such as the canopies of trees, they’ve been spotted skittering around the ground, looking for food. They’re often completely out of it, not moving out of the way of cars, or curious humans getting too close. And this is happening on a “larger [scale] than ever seen before,” according to Desmond. (1)
What’s Happening To The Birds?
Some scientists think the wildfires ravaging the United States may have forced the birds into early migration, messing with their established patterns. If that wasn’t bad enough, they may not have had enough fat reserves in their body to sustain them on their trip, causing them to suddenly die. Allison Salas, who has been collecting birds for New Mexico State University said, in a Twitter thread, that these “birds seem to be in relatively good condition, except that they are extremely emaciated. They have no fat reserves and barely any muscle mass. Almost as if they have been flying until they just couldn’t fly anymore.”
Additionally, the smoke from these fires may be impacting the brains of these birds. (1, 2)
Is There More To The Story?
While that might be part of it, Professor Desmond doesn’t believe it’s the whole solution. “We began seeing isolated mortalities in August, so something else has been going on aside [from] the weather events,” she says. “And we don’t know what it is. So that in itself is really troubling.”
Her guess? “Climate change is playing a role in this,” she says. “We lost 3 billion birds in the US since 1970 and we’ve also seen a tremendous decline in insects.” (1)
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