Mass Poisonings in Australia

Damn, seems like something would have been done after the first time.

It's raining birds on Western Australia

The Western Australia sky is raining dead birds in what is becoming a regular, and mysterious, event for the region.

More than 200 ibises, ravens, ducks, gulls and a pelican were found dead or convulsing near Perth, raising fears of a mass poisoning.

The discovery comes less than a year after the mystery deaths of 200 gulls only a few kilometres away, and two years after thousands of birds fell from the skies over the coastal town of Esperance after being poisoned by lead carbonate.....

...In December 2007, 5000 birds including yellow-throated miners, honey eaters and wattle birds were killed by lead carbonate blowing through Esperance as it was being exported through the town's port.

An investigation into the birds' deaths found that local children and adults had dangerously high levels of lead in their blood. A local company, Magellan Metals, escaped prosecution over the way it handled the transportation of lead through the town, but fears remained over the potential threat to humans.

 

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There is worse than that.

Carnaby's black cockatoo was once a common species around the south west of Western Australia. In recent times, though, the numbers have fallen dramatically... only it was difficult to notice because they are such long lived birds (and once considered a pest - they eat fruit, and were therefore shot in droves). They mate for life. Not on a single occasion has one been observed to do otherwise.

Their problem is that they only nest in hollows in the tallest Eucalyptus trees over 100 years old, and they return to the same nooky tree for years. As time goes on, there are precious few viable Eucalypt trees remaining due to land clearing and logging.
So they aren't mating as much as they once did, due to mated pairs claiming the existing possible mating locations and the younger pairs missing out.
Mating them in captivity, obviously, isn't an option. They've gone from being considered a common pest to an extremely endangered species in a matter of a few decades.

And because they live so long (Over a hundred years, in some cases) no one really noticed that they weren't breeding until relatively recently. It's becoming more possible every year that the flocks remaining will be the last.

I watched some flying overhead a while ago.
They've got this mournful sounding "weee-ahhh" sort of cry which, to stamp a human emotion on them, sounds almost as if they know.

 

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What about frogs? Do dead frogs drop out of the sky in australia too? Frog storms you know, like in Magnolia. I thought it was all nonsense but evidently it happens to frogs and more rarely to birds.

"Raining animals is a relatively rare meteorological phenomenon, although occurrences have been reported from many countries throughout history. One hypothesis that has been furthered to explain this phenomenon is that strong winds travelling over water sometimes pick up debris such as fish or frogs, and carry them for up to several miles.[1] However, this primary aspect of the phenomenon has never been witnessed or scientifically tested.
The animals most likely to drop from the sky in a rainfall are fish and frogs, with birds coming third. Sometimes the animals survive the fall, especially fish, suggesting the animals are dropped shortly after extraction. Several witnesses of raining frogs describe the animals as startled, though healthy, and exhibiting relatively normal behavior shortly after the event. In some incidents, however, the animals are frozen to death or even completely encased in ice. There are examples where the product of the rain is not intact animals, but shredded body parts. Some cases occur just after storms having strong winds, especially during tornadoes."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raining_animals

Hey Meursalt. How are you dear?

Love the frog scene in Magnolia

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7As_q6PSKSM

Believe it or not there is a story about some other animal raining, no it wasn't men but tadpoles I believe. Can you imagine the odds of two separate threads about two different animals raining down in one site? Well I thought it was strange...maybe its an end of the world sign. I'm going to check and see if there's anything raining in the religion section.

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Lucy, I think the Raining dead birds is a little different from the adverse occurrences caused by weather conditions. (like Tornado's throwing fish and cows into the air)

On the subject of the poisoning, it would be interesting to see if there were any lab results from tests done on samples. I wouldn't be surprised as if an Australian could ask their local EPA for information on the results.

I'd suggest that:

• Birds obviously fly
• They likely go to one source of water
• one source of water was polluted.

In the UK some summers we've had poison algae grow in such water locations, it's poisonous enough to kill fish and makes the water undrinkable. (It's not so much the Algae as it grows, but when it decays.)

 

Not that I've heard. Approximately 60% of all previously documented amphibian species in the northern Queensland rain forests are extinct, though, as far as we know. One or two have made a comeback after preservation, but for the majority that came too late.
We do have more than our share of UFO sightings, though, particularly in isolated areas. Maybe they took them.

I think there is a movie I need to see.

And fish. Always with the fish. Frogs, fish... birds. They explain these things by using body-to-weight ratios, all that... but no one seems to ask why it seems to be only frogs or only fish on these occasions where it rains lifeforms.

As to the birds, well, hell, that's nothing to get excited about. Birds are high enough so that any storm has the capability to take them so high they freeze, or just die from cold.

These birds in Australia probably were flying anywhere the fuck away from where they were when they died. Something like opening the door to an old friends house, and finding him lying on the floor with one hand stretched toward the telephone.

Doing just fine right now, Lucid Lucy. Completely non-sober. "10 down and still able to use a spellchecker" kind of fine. Just been promoted, looking into a crystal ball and drowning my sorrows.

Isn't there always?
You didn't say it, I won't say it. Zip.

 

Quite right. We can.

 

Actually I wrote the statement thinking that me being a "Pom", would exclude me from asking them and would require someone naturalised there.

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Yes maybe. It would make a good X File comeback. You'd love Magnolia its a very very strange film, nothing you would expect. Actually a good one for your present state of mind

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I know its weird tadpoles are raining in a part of Japan much to their confusion because they are unable to tie it to the weather. And this posted by jasonone

"In the northwestern Serbia, Belgrade daily Blic that there is a thousands of tiny frogs rained on a town.
instead of rain, because of the strong winds over Belgrade, down came the tiny amphibians on Sunday afternoon ( 2005-06-07 15:04).
The frogs, different from those usually seen in the area, survived the fall and hopped around in search of water.
Belgrade climatologist Slavisa Ignjatovic described the phenomenon as "not very unusual"."

Not unusual. Why don't they just test the birds and end the mystery?

Drown your sorrows not yourself mate

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are there algae blooms in drought conditions?

 

But I am.

I decided a couple of months ago, after being asked forty thousand times "What are you doing here" that I would act in a manner fulfilling the potential I'm often accused of not living up to.

I got promoted. Now they expect more. I can give that, too, but they never understood it was merely an experiment to see if I was capable of what I'm often told I'm capable of. If I don't abuse them of absurd notions soon, I'm going to find myself in a position I'm morally obliged to fulfill to the best of my capability. Another promotion, more responsibility for achieving things I have no belief in, the constant strain of pretending I do, and less of myself for me to enjoy.

I asked myself a question, I answered it. Now, I'm in a position where I'm required to continue to do what I decided to do on a whim.
I'm not entirely happy about that. I have an Achilles Heel... if I commit myself to something, I'll do it to the best of my ability regardless of any potential cost - even if that cost is myself.

So I'm drinking, trading off between financial comfort and ideology.
I suppose the main advantage of living up to expectation is that one can afford the medication.

 

No, one of the things I do like about this place is that it's relatively open.
Information like that is free for all. You could ring from Baghdad and someone would answer the phone and say something like "Yeah, mate. Get onto that after smoko. What's yer email?"
... having said that, I think I'm more stating from memory than what the reality is slowly becoming. All things change.

The experience I've had dealing with the UK is that you have too many people specialising in too many different things.
I was working a while ago for a company dealing with the UK on a regular basis, and the main gripe I had was not with the people themselves but with constant exasperation of asking everyone why I couldn't get anything done... it was always someone else's bailiwick.

Like having a flat tyre. One guy would take the wheel off, another would get the old tyre off, yet another would put the new one on, back to the first to put the wheel back on and then a fifth to finally charge you for it.
Sheer bloody frustration.

 

YOu would find this true in the States as well, its the UK picking up another american infection...if only they would stop sleeping with each other. One would think the UK would get tired of the rash.

 

Am I missing something?? Did the birds have a rash??

 

Yes in their rectum, rendering flight an itchy nuisance. I mean how can a bird fly and scratch its ass at the same time?

 

was it from algae? Poisoned water?

 

We don't know as yet.