The mystery behind why dead birds suddenly turned up in Yankton, South Dakota has been solved. No, it wasn’t because someone made them listen to that horrible Carpenter ear worm song*.

Real reason: the gubment did it. Specificially, the USDA killed the birds and since disclosed its involvement in poisoning starling birds at a private feed lot ten miles south of Yankton. Evidently, the birds had been troubling the lot’s owner, with over 5,000 of them crapping in his animal feed. Out of “concern” for the farmer’s animals and staff (if you believe that), the USDA used a bait laced with the poison DRC-1339 which the birds ate before flying back to Yankton.

Also, according to the gubment official, such poisonings aren’t a common practice and they feel awful about doing it.

Meanwhile, no government agencies have come forward to take the blame for dead birds dropping out of the sky in Arkansas, Louisiana (where hundreds of thousands of fish suddenly died), Alabama, California, and Maryland, or roughly 200 Wisconsin cows going teats up. (Presumably, the USDA wasn’t behind the thousands of dying birds in Italy, but you never know.)

Maybe it’s just me, but lately I’ve had a hankering to watch Rage, George C. Scott’s second film as a director, in which he also starred. Nah, it’s probably just a coincidence… like all of those other mass animal deaths for which the USDA hasn’t stepped up to claim blame for.

And now, for your listening pleasure*:

(If there’s headline about EV readers dropping dead en masse I’ll know why.)

Friday, January 21st, 2011, 6:51 pm   |   Odd Bites  |  RSS feed Comments and pings are currently closed.