>>>
officials in
arkansas
are investigating the mysterious deaths of thousands of black birds, the birds died suddenly, all at the same time and all within a mile of each other. one experts says the birds showed signs of physical trauma. author of the book "the incomparable honeybee," dr. lee salter, is with us. this is a remarkable incident. what can we attest this to?
>>
good morning, thomas. i haven't actually seen all the info but you know, there's death everywhere. and we are looking from the sky but also very close by, we are looking at the manatees, these giant sea cowesque xr esquesque critters in florida and the last couple of years, the
cold weather
there has taken down almost
1200
of these beasts. that's over 22% of the giant manatees on earth. so, everywhere, we have got some big problems.
>>
let talk about the occurrence of this though. how common is it, the type of thing we saw happen in
arkansas
? not something we hear about every day.
>>
no, but you know, flocks do come down, whether they were noxious fumes, whether they were -- whether they ran into
cold weather
, you know, these things do happen.
>>
all right. so
conspiracy theories
abound. i like
conspiracy theories
, because they are fun to talk about but could this be just something of
natural causes
, like lightning or hail or do you think it could be something more man made a
sonic boom
in the area?
>>
could be. you know, things do happen en masse and nature has a which of controlling high populations. they group, they go down, you know?
>>
and for this instance, could hail, weather have been something, a disturbance that could have interfered with the birds?
>>
absolutely. yeah. because, look, we just saw on new year's eve, we just saw a wicked tornadoes from
arkansas
and mississippi, up into illinois, so all of these events, i mean, yeah earthquake the weather and the climate has a lot to do with how everybody makes a living.
>>
dr. salter in a situation like this with the birds say, for instance, are they going to be looked at to determine what caused their death and how fast do results like that come out?
>>
absolutely. you can bet the wildlife people will be all over t.
>>
how fast are they able to turn around results like that?
>>
36, 48, 72 hours.
>>
yeah, i thank you lot of people will be looking for answers on this it is unexplained, hopefully explanations soon. reese salter, thanks so much for joining us.
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