USDA Bird Control Practices Responsible for at Least One Incident of Bird Death

The United States Department of Agriculture has admitted playing a role in one incident of bird death, according to The Christian Science Monitor. The USDA as admitted being responsible for an incident of dead birds found on the ground and in trees in Yankton, S.D. on January 17. The birds were poisoned as part of a USDA bird control program that goes back to the 1960s.

In farming communities, large flocks of birds--specifically blackbirds, starlings, grackles and cowbirds--can cause problems for farmers as the birds can damage crops, eat seeds and feed grains and defecate in feeding troughs. The USDA has had a program in place called Bye Bye Blackbird since the 1960s with the specific role of reducing and controlling nuisance bird populations.

The Wildlife Services Program of the USDA admitted using a poison--the avicide DR-1339--to cull and control a roost of 5,000 birds in Nebraska. The birds were defecating on a farmer's cattle feed.

DR-1339 is a slow-acting poison that is used for controlling populations of blackbirds, cowbirds, magpies, pigeons, starlings, gulls and ravens. The avicide is targeted at these birds that cause damage to agricultural crops, personal property or that prey upon threatened or endangered species.
It is common practice in areas such as my home state of Illinois for nuisance birds to be poisoned or shot. Farmers will often employ such practices to stop birds from damaging and destroying crops, eating crop seeds and feed that is meant for livestock and contaminating feed lots and feed troughs.

The USDA and Wildlife Services Program has denied any involvement in other incidents of dead birds found in other states, including the New Year's Day incident in which several thousand dead blackbirds were found near Beebe, Arkansas. Authorities determined the dead birds in that incident were the result of trauma, possibly from fireworks.

Will the admission of the USDA poisoning of birds found in South Dakota quell the Internet buzz about "aflockalypse?" Probably not. While poisoning is a logical explanation for dead birds in South Dakota and perhaps even other birds in Louisiana, Illinois and Kentucky, this does not explain how and why the rash of dead birds occurred in a similar time period in seemingly-unrelated parts of the country.

More speculation regarding governmental conspiracy is bound to crop up and run rampant on the web, but for now, there is at least one simple explanation for bird deaths.