By Lewis Delavan
Arkansas News Bureau
LITTLE ROCK — Preliminary tests show thousands of dead red-winged blackbirds that littered Beebe on New Year’s Eve succumbed to mid-air trauma, state officials said today.
Up to 5,000 blackbirds died in a square-mile area beginning around 11:30 p.m., according to the state Game and Fish Commission.
In an unrelated event, the commission said tests were pending on more than 83,000 dead fish that washed up along the Arkansas River last week.
The trauma that the blackbirds suffered was primarily in breast tissue, with blood clots in the body cavity and internal bleeding, according to preliminary tests conducted by the Arkansas Livestock and Poultry Commission. Major organs were normal and birds appeared to be healthy. Gizzards and stomachs were empty, the report said.
Most birds were dead when state Game and Fish Commission wildlife officers arrived but some were alive at the time, according to Game and Fish, which sent specimens to the livestock and poultry agency and to a laboratory in Wisconsin, commission spokesman Keith Stephens said.
An aerial survey found no dead birds outside the square-mile area.
The fish kill, which began Dec. 29, covered about 17 river miles from Ozark Lock and Dam down to river mile 240, directly south of Hartman, Chris Racey, the Game and Fish Commission’s assistant chief of fisheries, said today in a release.
Reports first came last Wednesday night, district fisheries biologist Bob Limbird said in the release.
“Fisheries biologist Frank Leone and wildlife officer Ben Sisk arrived at dark and scanned the water with a spotlight,” Limbird said. “They saw a lot of dead fish on the shore and decided to come back with more manpower Thursday morning.”
About 99 percent of the dead fish were drum. A few dead yellow bass, white bass and sauger that were found likely are unrelated to the kill, the agency said.
Five dying drum were sent to the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff for testing. Full results may take 30 days, Stephens said, but he added that having only one species affected logically suggests the fish were stricken by an illness.
