Dozens of dead birds shut down streets

[Livia]

They're still trying to figure out what happened...

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/01/08/aus....ap/index.html

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- Police shut down 10 blocks of businesses in the heart of downtown early Monday after dozens of birds were found dead in the streets, but officials said preliminary tests showed no dangerous chemicals in the air.

As many as 60 dead pigeons, sparrows and grackles were found overnight along Congress Avenue, a main route through downtown. No human injuries or illnesses were reported.

"We do not feel there is a threat to the public health," said Adolfo Valadez, the medical director for Austin and Travis County Health and Human Services. He said preliminary air-quality tests showed no dangerous chemicals and the area should reopen around noon.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said officials had no credible information to suggest any imminent threat to the city.

On Congress Avenue, just outside the state Capitol, emergency workers donned yellow hazardous-material suits Monday morning, and dozens of fire trucks and ambulances were parked nearby.

Workers were testing for any sort of environmental contaminant or gas or chlorine leaks that might have cause the bird deaths, said police spokeswoman Toni Chovanetz. At least one bird carcass was being tested locally for other possible causes, and other carcasses were shipped to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Texas A&M University.

Valadez said the tests on the dead birds would likely take several days and look for signs of poisoning or viral infections, though he said officials do not think bird flu is involved.

A 10-block stretch of Congress Avenue, several side streets and all buildings in the area were shut down and declared off-limits as a precaution, Chovanetz said.

The street closure stretched from just outside the Capitol to a section of the Colorado River known as Town Lake. The Capitol opened on schedule Monday, the day before the legislative session was to begin.

[skcin]

That's scary. And kind of gross.

[Livia]

They've ruled out gas or chlorine, sending one bird to Iowa for Avian flu/West Nile testing, and another one to A&M.

http://www.kxan.com/Global/story.asp?S=5904817

Some of the comments by the locals are pretty funny. ("The birds committed suicide because the Cowboys lost...")

[DavidMn]

Originally Posted by Livia

They've ruled out gas or chlorine, sending one bird to Iowa for Avian flu/West Nile testing, and another one to A&M.

http://www.kxan.com/Global/story.asp?S=5904817

Some of the comments by the locals are pretty funny. ("The birds committed suicide because the Cowboys lost...")

Somehow I knew they'd use a football analogy there.

[amber]

I hope they didn't get poisoned by drinking from the same water source. Because that would be one big ass poisoned body of water.

This freaks me out quite a bit.

[Livia]

Originally Posted by DavidMn

Somehow I knew they'd use a football analogy there.

Well, it IS Texas, after all.

[Livia]

Originally Posted by amber

I hope they didn't get poisoned by drinking from the same water source. Because that would be one big ass poisoned body of water.

This freaks me out quite a bit.

The only body of water around would be Town Lake, which other critters also drink from (ducks, coons, possums, bats, rats, etc.). I'm thinking the birds were poisoned on purpose, as awful as that is...the dead birds were in such a small area - that's the only thing that makes sense to me. Some a-hole probably got tired of them pooping on his BMW.

[DrummerDeanna]

Hmm..this and the mysterious odor in Manhattan and into New Jersey...very strange indeed.

[Livia]

And a bomb scare in Miami, and a chemical spill in Houston...

[becca]

I wouldn't put it past Pat Robertson's vengeful and cranky god to be behind all of these strange things... and Austin is such a stronghold of that godless liberalism to blame for everything as well as praiseless if skillful music.

[Livia]

FEATHER DUSTING

Monday's Congress Avenue bird deaths prompted a wealth of speculation on the still-undetermined cause, none better than Austin cutups the Midgetmen's assertion: "This is retribution [for] when a bird **** on our guitarist's shoulder during a photo shoot last summer." Naturally, our avian friends have been intertwined with human-created music since long before Hans Christian Andersen's beautiful 1865 folktale The Bird of Popular Song. More recently, they swoop and soar through oft-recorded jazz standard "Lady Bird" (Chet Baker, Stan Getz, Dexter Gordon), classic Alan Bergman pop song "Yellow Bird" (Eartha Kitt, Lawrence Welk, Chris Isaak), and, it goes without saying, Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird," which appears on practically every Seventies rock compilation ever made. Then there's the Trashmen's "Surfin' Bird," also done by the Cramps, Ramones, and Queers; Leonard Cohen and Johnny Cash's "Bird on a Wire"; Stevie Nicks' "Nightbird" and her Fleetwood Mac colleague Christine McVie's "Songbird"; and Little Jimmy Dickens' immortal "May the Bird of Paradise Fly Up Your Nose." "The singing-bird soared away, over mountain and valley, over field and wood," writes Andersen. "He was the Bird of Popular Song, who never dies."

http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrob...d=oid%3A435171

[SuzeQuze]

Stevie got a mention with that bird scare? That is so strange!

[Livia]

It's from the Chronicle, in the weekly music news column.

Christopher Gray rocks!