200 starlings found dead but this time there's no mystery: U.S. government admits poisoning birds in South Dakota

By GAVIN ALLEN
Last updated at 6:57 PM on 22nd January 2011

The bizarre trend of massed animal deaths around the world in January has been as baffling as it is disturbing.

It started on New Year's Eve as 4,000 birds crashed to earth over a one-mile area of Beebe, Arkansas, and was followed by tens of thousands of fish washing up on a river bank in nearby Ozark.

But rather than proving to be isolated incidents, they were the first in a long series of oddities that have seemingly defied explanation - or at least some of them have.

South Dakota: Dead birds litter the ground but the USDA has claimed responsibility for poisoning them

Shock: The USDA was surprised the poisoned birds managed to fly 10 miles

Plummet: The birds fell from the sky and plugged straight into the snowy ground

The latest occurrence saw around 200 starlings drop from the sky in Yankton, South Dakota but, with local authorities were baffled, the government stepped forward to claim responsibility.

It was initially believed that cold weather may have caused the deaths, but then Yankton police received a call from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), stating that its officials had poisoned the birds.

Some 5,000 of the birds had been terrorising a feedlot 10 miles away, defecating in the feed meal and posing a threat to the animals and farm workers.

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The location: Yankton, South Dakota

The USDA decided killing them would be the best action to take and laced bait with the poison DRC-1339.

Officials were surprised the birds made it so far before dying, but they have assured the townsfolk that the poisoned dead birds do not pose a risk to nearby animals or humans.

The Yankton mystery was solved quickly but many similar incidents remain unresolved.

Arkansas: Redwing blackbird fell from the sky in the town of Beebe

The plot thickens: Rescue chief Christer Olofsson holds a dead bird in Falkoping, Sweden, where dozens of jackdaws were found dead on the street

Mass bird deaths, ranging in numbers from dozens to thousands, were reported in Arkansas, Alabama, Louisiana, Kentucky, California, Italy and Sweden.

Mass fish death have been reported in Arkansas, Maryland, Chicago, New Zealand and Brazil.

The trend has also hit Britain with 40,000 devil crabs washing ashore along the Kent coast while hundreds of fish were found floating lifelessly in a Greater Manchester pond.

Both those British examples were attributed to extreme temperatures in a very cold winter, and some of the U.S. incidents have also been explained away.

The deaths of two hundred cows on a farm in Wisconsin has been attributed to pneumonia or a similar disease, while the deaths of thousands of turtle in the Italian town of Faenza was attributed to over-eating.

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Worldwide phenomenon: This map shows mass animal deaths across the globe

Other rational theories floated for the various incidents but much of it is guesswork and in any vacuum of facts conspiracy theorists are sure to tread.

On the website PrisonPlanet.com, run by American conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, dug out evidence of bio terrorism.

Quoting a 1997 interview with former U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen, in which he stated: '[Terrorists] are engaging even in an eco-type of terrorism, whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves.'

The truth is out there: But perhaps aliens are not really to blame

Members of internet forum Mayhem Makers brought aliens into the argument, with one poster called 'Devil Johnny', writing: 'I'm not saying the alien conspiracy is true, but I'm saying people need to start thinking on their own. You believe anything a man in a suit tells you.'

Even Mayhem Makers pessimists got in on the act when another poster, 'Woll Smoth', said: '2012 is coming earlier', referring to the ancient Mayan prophecy that the world will end on December 21, 2012.

But while it is easy to dismiss the conspiracy theorists, some are closer to the mark than others.

Alex Jones of PrisonPlanet.com posed the question 'could secret government testing be responsible for the carnage?'

He said: 'Electromagnetic scalar weapons that can artificially manipulate the environment could be responsible for the mass die offs. We know for a fact that over a decade ago the U.S.

'Military Industrial Complex was aware of and involved in the testing of such technology.

'The U.S. government has been repeatedly caught engaging in illegal bio-weapons tests over American skies that have maimed and killed not just animals, but humans.

'Given the history of governments across the world performing unwitting experiments on their populations, the number one suspect in such cases should always be government.'

As the conspiracy nuts would say, 'just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean they aren't watching you'.

Jones may have got his workings out wrong in this instance, but he somehow stumbled on the right answer.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1349190/US-government-admits-poisoning-200-birds-fell-dead-sky-South-Dakota.html#ixzz1Bs1oGGxf

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U.S. government slams BP for missed deadlines on spill

Reuters – Oil reach the marshlands on the NE pass of the Mississippi Delta May 23, 2010. REUTERS/Daniel Beltra/Greenpeace/Handout

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By Matthew Bigg and Chris Baltimore – Sun May 23, 6:53 pm ET

VENICE, La/HOUSTON (Reuters) – The U.S. government threatened on Sunday to remove BP from efforts to seal a blown-out oil well in theGulf of Mexico if it doesn't do enough to stop the leak, though it acknowledged only the company and the oil industry have the know-how to halt the deepwater spill.

The Coast Guard said on Sunday that over 65 miles of Gulf Coast has experienced "shoreline impact" and less than half of it could be cleaned up relatively quickly, underscoring the growing ecological toll of the disaster.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Washington is frustrated and angry that BP Plc missed "deadline after deadline" in its efforts to seal the well more than a month after an oil rig explosion triggered the disaster.

"I am angry and I am frustrated that BP has been unable to stop this oil from leaking and to stop the pollution from spreading. We are 33 days into this effort and deadline after deadline has been missed," Salazar said after visiting BP's U.S. headquarters in Houston on Sunday.

"If we find they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing, we'll push them out of the way appropriately," he told reporters as the administration maintained its hard line.

Salazar's strong comments followed President Barack Obama's on Saturday, when he blamed the spill on "a breakdown of responsibility" at BP. The unfolding disaster has become a top priority on Obama's crowded domestic agenda.

The chief of the Coast Guard, Admiral Thad Allen, acknowledged on Sunday that the government is forced to rely on BP and the private oil sector to try to plug the gusher. At the same time, BP said the containment method it was attempting on the ocean floor was capturing much less of the leaking oil than three days ago.

Company engineers were readying other short-term solutions, the next one expected to start late on Tuesday. But BP Managing Director Bob Dudley said there was "no certainty" of success at the unprecedented depths at which they were being tried -- one mile down in the Gulf of Mexico.

More than a month after a rig explosion triggered what Obama has described as an environmental disasterand "BP's mess," oil is still spewing virtually unchecked from BP's ruptured Macondo seabed well.

TRUST

At a time of mounting U.S. government and public criticism of the company and its executives over the catastrophic spill, Allen said he trusted BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward, who has made comments downplaying its size and environmental impact.

Sheets of heavy oil have washed ashore in Louisiana's fragile marshlands and lesser "oil debris" has also reached the coasts of Mississippi and Alabama in what is seen as an ecological and economic calamity for the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Given the lack of a solution so far and the doubts over BP, Allen was asked on CNN's "State of the Union" why the U.S. government did not completely take over the spill containment operation from the London-basedfirm.

"What makes this an unprecedented anomalous event is access to the discharge site is controlled by the technology that was used for the drilling, which is owned by the private sector," Allen said. "They have the eyes and ears that are down there. They are necessarily the modality by which this is going to get solved," he added.

Asked too about the apparent growing U.S. lack of confidence in Hayward, Allen said: "I trust Tony Hayward. When I talk to him, I get an answer."

BP has deployed a long suction tube down to the larger of two leaks from the well, but a BP spokesman said on Sunday this captured only 1,360 barrels per day of oil over the 24 hours to midnight Saturday. The flow has been declining from the 5,000 barrels (210,000 gallons/795,000 liters) per day the company had said the tube was siphoning off three days ago.

BP engineers are now preparing a "top kill," pumping heavy fluids into the well to try to shut it off, an operation to begin late Tuesday or early Wednesday, Dudley told CNN.

Many scientists believe the Gulf spill has already eclipsed the 11 million gallons (41 million liters) spilled by the 1989 Exxon Valdez tanker accident in Alaska. They warn the spreading oil could be caught in a powerful ocean current that could take it to the Florida Keys, Cuba and the U.S. East Coast.

Coast Guard Admiral Mary Landry said 65.6 miles of shoreline has been impacted so far and about 30 acres of marshland.

She told a briefing that of the area affected on the coast "25 miles ... are really readily cleanable and the others are a little harder access but we'll get to it."

Of the impacted marshland about half of it has heavily oiled she said the rest "lightly oiled with sheen."

PRAYERS TO GOD

Churchgoers in Louisiana coastal parishes affected by the spill prayed for God's help. "You (God) can clear that oil up, because that oil was down there thousands of years before it came up in the Gulf. So you know what to do with it, dear God," retired oyster fisherman Herbert Guidry prayed in the New Mount Pilgrim BaptistChurch in Houma.

Analysts say growing ecological and economic damage from the spill could become a political liability for Obama before November congressional elections.

While also promising to hold Washington accountable for proper oversight of the industry, Obama ramped up pressure on companies linked to the spill: BP, Halliburton and Transocean Ltd. He believed a "breakdown of responsibility" between them led to the disaster.

BP stocks have taken a beating in the markets in the month since the well blowout and rig explosion that killed 11 workers and touched off the spill. Its share price shed another 4 percent on Friday in London, extending recent sharp losses.

(Additional reporting by Susan Heavey and Jackie Frank in Washington, Sharon Reich in Louisiana, Hashem Kalantari in Tehran; Writing by Ed Stoddard and Pascal Fletcher; Editing by Eric Beech)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100523/pl_nm/us_oil_rig_leak