Birds are dying in the United States and no one knows why | Hacker News Reader

Birds are dying in the United States and no one knows why

dw.com

168 pointstchalla67 comments

Since there seems to be some confusion on the topic here, this article isn't talking about a long-term nationwide decline in bird populations. This is an acute illness (of unknown origin, so far) impacting mostly juvenile birds that started being reported in certain regions of the US (not nationwide) back in late May/early June. There are good odds that this is either some kind of novel contagious disease (most of the likely culprits have been ruled out), or something to do with their food supply (the affected regions have a suspicious overlap with regions where Brood X cicadas emerged, but there's no conclusive link known so far).

The Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources has a good synopsis of the situation, as well as suggested actions for those in impacted areas (mostly, bring in bird feeders and regularly sanitize bird baths if you leave them filled): https://fw.ky.gov/News/Pages/Kentucky-Fish-and-Wildlife-prov...

I live on 1 acre against a small wooded area in central PA. Very rarely see dead birds. The other day I saw a dead bird and a very confused bird next to it in my garden, young robins I think. I thought perhaps they were attacked until I read about this phenomenon.

When I was a kid I saw what looked like a black bird (Icteridae) kill a robin right in front my eyes. They were flying around each other in close proximity very fast and eventually the black bird must have bumped into the robin with it's beak and the robin dropped dead. I went to pick it up and took it home to show my parents. I've wondered how common that is, haven't seen it since.

Recently saw a pack of crows attack and kill one of a mockingbird pair. The mate tried to save it but was unsuccessful. The crow flew off with it in its beak and the rest of the crows joined it and tore the mockingbird to pieces. I see now why a group of crows is called "a murder of crows".

Beaks of Wrath

Perhaps too reductive, but it was not that long ago that poisoned dog food from china was mass killing pets.

Perhaps people should learn from the old adage:

stop feeding the animals... (with tainted bulk food you bought at lowes/homedepot mass produced in China)?

This is something they're considering, too, and part of the reason that it's recommended to put away your bird feeders in impacted areas.

But, mostly, they're concerned that whatever's going on is contagious and could potentially spread when birds congregate at feeders. It's hard to convince birds to social distance.

I was too lazy and/or insufficiently confident in my mediocre handyman skills to put up bird feeders, so I just put little piles of seeds on the railing of my deck with maybe 4" (10 cm) between adjacent piles.

As a side effect, I get nicely social distanced animals. During the most crowded times there are still ~3x as many piles as there are simultaneous diners.

If you want to feed animals, make sure you have plenty of insects around. They're the bottom of the food chain and if you have lots of insects around then the birds will come for them.

The other night we had a bunch of seagulls hunting butterflies and moths above us. At first we thought they were attacking us, but after a few times we noticed they were simply hunting. Their prey, in their turn, are mostly busy devouring a patch of nettles on a slope at the end of our property, and so they're keeping the nettles in check AND the birds fed.

As a bonus, I don't have to mow the lawn either.

Gee, a new contagious disease in birds. What could it be!

I walk around my neighborhood every day (about 7 continuous years of at least 3 miles a day for context). This is in NY.

Over the last 3 months or so I've seen quite a few more than usual dead birds, most of which had really nasty looking eyes. It's not like something out of a horror movie where the streets are littered with them but instead of the 1-2 I might see in a couple month stretch, this has been more like 6-7 with similar eye issues for the ones that were "fresh" enough to see the details. Most were on the sidewalk or on someone's lawn.

I've seen 2 in the gutters of houses which seems strange, like they died on the roof of a house and trickled down. I only know this because it happened to people I tend to walk past and they were outside on a ladder addressing it.

They were all grackles and blue jays. There's a fairly equal amount of grackles, blue jays, robins, sparrows and crows here.

I also saw a pretty big crow fly directly into someone's window but it wasn't a usual case where it was a huge window where it might think it's open space. This was a pretty small window near a right angle of the entrance to their house. I've never seen a bird fly into a spot like that before. It flew off so I have no idea what happened to it.

Are people supposed to call animal control in situations like this? Like, if I find a dead animal in general, is there someone who gets paid to know about that?

Your local audobon society chapter can probably get it to the correct people. You can also try a local university. They usually have an extention office for this sort of thing. Animal control is worth trying as well.

It depends where you are. For example in Santa Clara County, CA the local Vector Control asks people to report all dead birds so that they can test for West Nile Virus.

https://vector.sccgov.org/resources/diseases-and-surveillanc...

> Over the last 3 months or so I've seen quite a few more than usual dead birds, most of which had really nasty looking eyes

Since scientists haven't found a conclusive common cause of death, perhaps they are confusing cause-and-effect.

We shouldn't ignore the possiblity that birds with nasty eyes are being culled specifically for that reason. An "avian eugenic program" if you will, designed so the world will be populated by more attractive birds.

lol, HN doesn't have a sense of humor, you have been downvoted.

Yet another HN anecdote—I found a sick baby bird a few weeks ago with swollen eyes in northern Michigan, feather loss on its head, a mother bird circling and crying about it. it soon died and I buried it and also put away the bird bath and feeder, I suggest everyone do the same, another article[1] suggested a possible bacteria infection. Baths and feeders are super-spreader locations to these birds.

1. https://www.wlwt.com/article/birds-are-suddenly-dying-whats-...

Very sad. The feather loss on the head might imply sibling rivalry in the nest. Nature really is rather red in tooth and claw.

Birds just like us need water and food. Moving water is best but regularly changed static water is fine but make sure it is changed. Likewise food put out needs to be monitored.

Hopefully not some deadly ubeakquitous beakteria

Maybe a result of "insect catastrophic" dieoff:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

I never understood the insect thing. Every house in our neighbourhood has at least one bird feeder. The birds are lazy and just chill all day around and eat all kinds of seeds, oats and nuts provided by humans. From time to time they bother with worms after the rain. None are ever hungry for sure.

I'm trying to find a more charitable interpretation to your comment, but are you implying that insects are nothing but easily replaceable human-neighborhood bird food?

I think the GP is saying, the birds have plenty of food, what do they need insects for? (I agree this is probably over-simplified.)

Many birds solely/mostly feed their young insects even if the adults prefer seeds.

Even lowly sparrows will eat insects to feed their young. This is one of the reasons Mao’s four pests campaign to kill all the sparrows was such a huge failure.

> Experts do still have their theories. And one of them links the disease with the arrival of Brood-X cicadas that made their appearance around late April to early May — the same time people started to notice the dead birds.

A different article makes the possible connection more clear:

> Some people commenting on Facebook and elsewhere speculate that people are spraying chemicals to deal with the current cicada emergence and that may be impacting the birds. There is absolutely no reason to spray cicadas, as the Animal Welfare League of Arlington said on Twitter:

https://www.birdwatchingdaily.com/news/birdwatching/terribly...

The tweet says:

> DON'T use insecticide on cicadas! Remember that many animals, including birds, bats, dogs, and cats, eat cicadas and can get very sick if they ingest insecticide. Help us keep local animals safe and well - the cicadas won't be here for that long, anyway!

https://twitter.com/AWLAArlington/status/1397332919639805955

Given that no pathogen has been found, this would seem to be a viable working hypothesis.

edit:

On the other hand, the birdwatchingdaily article also notes:

> In the last 10 days, people in the Washington, D.C., metro area have been reporting increasing numbers of sick, blind, injured, and dead birds. For the most part, they have been juvenile Common Grackles, European Starlings, and Blue Jays.

To be consistent with the hypothesis, these birds should be carnivorous.

edit:

> The common grackle forages on the ground, in shallow water, or in shrubs; it may steal food from other birds. It is omnivorous, eating insects, minnows, frogs, eggs, berries, seeds, grain, and even small birds and mice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_grackle

> The common starling is largely insectivorous and feeds on both pest and other arthropods.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_starling

> The blue jay feeds mainly on seeds and nuts, such as acorns, which it may hide to eat later;[2] soft fruits; arthropods; and occasionally small vertebrates. It typically gleans food from trees, shrubs, and the ground, and sometimes hawks insects from the air. Blue jays can be very aggressive to other birds; they sometimes raid nests, and have decapitated other birds

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_jay

Why do they spray for cicadas? they don't like the noise?

Aside from that the sheer number of cicadas is astonishing.

I used to have a lot of them where I lived and I never noticed a problem... They are very loud but I would not kill them for it... They were mostly living in oak trees

Yes, they were loud for roughly 4-6 weeks. They all died off prior to the end of June.

Cicadas can be harmful to trees from the egg laying. I’ve even heard of extreme cases where a young tree doesn’t survive.

https://wtop.com/local/2021/06/the-cicadas-might-be-gone-but...

Cicadas can, in large groups, be damaging to one's hearing[0].

[0] https://wusa9.com/mobile/article/news/local/cicadas-emerging...

While this is literally true (anecdotally, during the peak of it in early June, I registered 106db standing still in a suburban neighborhood just outside the beltway near a large tree playing host to quite a few of them), I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that it's not the noise that drove people to gas the bugs. More likely in my mind:

1. protecting young trees

2. a perceived need to protect brush/flowers/etc.

3. mitigating the landshrimp "ick" factor (i.e. "it's big, gross, and lands on my shirt for no reason").

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

There's a great documentary called "the messenger" on this topic of declining bird populations

https://youtu.be/3xXV95gYHC8

“residents are attaching bird skeletons to feeders to ward off birds”. That’s incredibly bizarre. Why not just take them down as advised?

Is that what that utterly bananas leading photo supposed to be??

There's a dead bird blog somewhere that follows the 'dead bird' hysteria/stories in multiple countries.

Here's one from 100 years ago - https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/44162565 They just thought it was cool.

Remember the 'Serial Killer Stalks N.Y. Pigeons', he was in the 90's then re-emerged in the 2000's. (Netflix special spoiler, he didn't exist)

Let's hope this doesn't jump to us.

china knows

Could high levels of CO2 be the cause?

CO2 at 800ppm has a huge impact on mouse lungs:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27721892

Could lower levels (400s ppm) have an impact on other parts of animals?

The article says they've been seeing this illness spread since April. If it was caused by rising CO2 levels I'd expect its appearance to be much less sudden.

Unlikely. Remember that birds are dinosaurs... they spent a significant portion of their evolution at a time when there was a lot more CO2 in the atmosphere. Bird's lungs are much more efficient than mammalian lungs, which is why some birds can fly up to altitudes at which humans would lose consciousness if they weren't in a pressurized airplane cabin! With that and their mobility, birds (at least a few species) are good candidates for surviving the 6th great extinction... given that some are also very intelligent, maybe dinos will get another shot at inheriting the earth after all! ;-)

We are so fucked

Just a reminder that in the 19th Century we killed off billions and billions of passenger pigeons until they went completely extinct. They were the most abundant bird in North America and we literally killed them all. Humans causing massive damage to our environment isn't anything novel unfortunately.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_pigeon

Sure. It's been done before by humans but now we aren't deliberately killing off these species. We are just existing and through the consequences of our behaviors we are killing them. We are all killing off species at a rate humans never before could.

I would expect that since the number of humans exist at many multiples of what they used to before. Plus technological advances allowing humans to exert more influence over the environment.

Sure, but let’s add to the fact that as a species we have pretty much collectively decided that the other animals, plants, insects don’t matter. We’ve also collectively decided to defecate all over the environment and dump chemicals everywhere. As a species we really suck.

> We are just existing

You may be just existing but some very powerful politicians and businessmen are spreading lies and hiding the truth so we can continue to just exist and never realize that the systems which determine how we exist (eat, move, live, consume...) are destroying our habitat/climate for the benefit of a few. There are many ways to exist, and our current ways are very deliberate with regards to their impact on life (eg neonicotinoids).

Let me clarify. Without actively and purposefully doing so we are killing off species on a grand scale. We do by how we acquire food, how we manufacture items for consumption, etc. Just by existing, in the sense of local optimization creatures who seek comfort and pleasure, we are killing the planet.

I, for one, am glad we don't have passenger pigeons regularly depleting large portions of our food supply.|

On the other hand, I did just go out and flip over the bird bath, so it won't accumulate rain any more, and spread this disease. (We've already removed bird feeders here in NW Indiana at the direction of the State)

Was trading them for the European Starling really a win though?

Ecological niches don't just go unfilled y'know. That grain is still in the field and there are birds who want to eat it.

To be clear, it's not just about birds. The entire planet.

Why do I have a sense of déjà vu?

It hasn't been overnight that birds have been disappearing.

For example, this article from the NYT dated 2 years ago: https://archive.ph/zfDAH

That's a general decline in populations. This is a new and very distinctive disease that has been recognized and is spreading rapidly in certain species.

It's likely we used pesticides to kill their food source.

Per the article, it appears to be contagious and spreading, and an increasing number of species are being infected. It's more likely a contagious disease or infection.

1. Birds eat insects

2. Insects are dying.

Therefore, birds are dying.

QED □

It can also be due to artificial disruption of their timing such as migrations, breeding, etc.

> "West Nile [disease] is ruled out. . . Everything has been ruled out. To date, we still do not know," says Monsma, citing tests conducted by Wildlife's clinic director, Cheryl Chooljian.

I’m no expert in this, but I’m going to guess that destroying their habitats may be to blame.

I mean we are but what does that have to do with swollen eyes and neurological impairment?

It would seem quite obvious that mass destruction of habitat may cause neurological impairment, mass deaths, etc.

Definitely agree that the habitat destruction we have inflicted upon the animals we share the planet with is sad.

The article is about a specific disease though that birds in the eastern US have started suffering from this spring/summer.

These things are not unrelated.

It really doesn't take an expert to recognize the cause on a macro-level - destroying their habitats, an infinite number of chemicals making their way through the food chain, air pollution, climate change, fewer insects.

If anything, this seems like a predictable outcome.

Yes, obviously habitat destruction, chemical exposure, etc. are bad. But the sudden, broad emergence of a new set of symptoms means that something new is happening besides business as usual.

In this scenario, saying "habitat destruction" and leaving it at that is like a coroner saying "cause of death: stopped being alive." It's true, but not useful.

No, this is absolutely business as usual. The “new” thing you’re talking about is a “new” thing during that year, until something new comes out the next, repeating to produce this: https://www.birds.cornell.edu/home/bring-birds-back/

What was that saying about missing the forest for the trees?

Habitat destruction is definitely a problem, but in this case the disease is affecting birds that live well alongside humans like starlings and Jays. I’m pretty sure we aren’t running out of city habitat.

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