Nigeria Content Online

As hundreds of dead
birds fall from the skies across the United States, about a hundred
birds again fell off in Sweden shortly before midnight on Tuesday, just
as millions of dead fish surfaced in a bay in Maryland, United States.
Similar unexplained mass fish deaths occurred in Brazil and New Zealand.

The Baltimore Sun
reports that an estimated 2 million fish were found dead in the
Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, mostly adult spot with some juvenile
croakers in the mix, as well. In New Zealand, hundreds of dead snapper
fish washed up on Coromandel Peninsula beaches, many found with their
eyes missing, The New Zealand Herald reports. However Maryland
Department of the Environment spokesperson Dawn Stoltzfus says
“cold-water stress” is believed to be the culprit.

Residents in
Falköping, southeast of Skövde, found 50 to 100 jackdaw birds on a
street further echoing the unexplained incidents that commenced earlier
in the week across the Atlantic in southern US. A Swedish county
veterinarian, Robert ter Horst believes that the birds may have been
literally scared to death by fireworks set off on Tuesday night.

“We have received
information from local residents last night. Our main theory is that
the birds were scared away because of the fireworks and landed on the
road, but couldn’t fly away from the stress and were hit by a car,” he
explained to a Swedish online news platform — The Local on Wednesday.

“We will continue
to look at whether there are other theories, but then we have to do an
autopsy on the birds. The birds just now are in a car on the way to a
laboratory in Uppsala. We don’t know exactly what happened yet, but we
will continue the investigation,” he added.

Mr Horst noted that
he has also received some reports about pigeons, but the incident has
happened too quickly to assume that it is related to the untimely
demise of the jackdaws. The site where the birds were found has now
been blocked for a veterinary inspection of the birds. Emergency
services had cordoned off the area earlier on Wednesday. Across the
Atlantic, an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 blackbirds crashed into homes,
cars and each other in central Arkansas on New Year eve. Another 500
birds were killed and littered the highway in Louisiana. Diverse
theories such as fireworks and power lines sparks have been propounded.
It’s almost certainly a coincidence the events happened within days of
each other, Louisiana’s state wildlife veterinarian Jim LaCour said on
Tuesday.

“I haven’t found anything to link the two at this point.” Anders
Wirdheim of the Swedish Ornithological Society (Sveriges ornitologiska
förening, SOF) believes the nocturnal birds were likely frightened in
the middle of the night, then flew around in the dark and collided with
various objects. Bird deaths and fish kills at smaller numbers aren’t
all that uncommon, though the size and proximity of some of the recent
events have led people to allege their relation, though officials deny
the frequency of these wildlife deaths as being anything other than
coincidence.