Around 500 dead birds have fallen from the sky in Louisiana, found scattered along a quarter-mile portion of highway in Point Coupee Parish, the AP reports. The discovery is approximately 300 miles south of Beebe, Arkansas, where just days earlier thousands of the same species of birds also fell from the sky.
Initial tests conducted by biologists on the red-winged blackbirds and starlings found in Arkansas revealed that the birds suffered internal injuries that formed deadly blood clots. Countless explanations have been speculated, from intense high-altitude weather like lightning or hail to disturbance from fireworks. Disease and poison were determined to be far less likely causes, though full test results won't rule them out until next week.
"There was probably some physical reason, but I doubt anyone will ever know what it was," Thurman Booth, Arkansas' wildlife services director, told CBS.
The latest occurrence of more dead birds turning up in Louisiana only compounds local residents' worries, as in the week prior to the Arkansas blackbird mystery, 83,000 dead drum fish washed up along a river about 100 miles west of Beebe. Wildlife officials claim the incidents are not related.
A Kentucky woman also reported finding dead birds in her yard Monday, though numbering far less in the dozens.
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