A deadly cocktail of circumstance lead to the demise of 63 birds in Texas earlier this month.

After much ado, and many theories, it looks as though the winged creatures (found littering downtown Austin on January 8) were done in by a combination of parasites and a drop in temperature, avian pathologists at Texas A&M said yesterday. According to an Austin American-Statesman article:

"We did not find any evidence that there was a public health problem, either from a poison or from an infectious disease," said Dr. Lelve Gayle, the executive director of the Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory.

"These birds were heavily parasitized by multiple species of parasites," Gayle said. "These birds were sick."

The article doesn’t explain the role the weather played, other than to mention that the temperature dropped from the 50s to the 40s. Huh.

Anyway, city health officials are still waiting on additional test results from other agencies before formally announcing the cause of death. But from the evidence that’s in already, it sounds like the birds weren’t poisoned.

The verdict is still out on the cause of mysterious bird deaths elsewhere recently, including Australia and Colorado.

Posted by Alisa Opar on Jan 19, 2007 at 4:39 PM
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