West Coast Smoke Could Be Killing Thousands of Birds

Map of Reports Seeing Mass Dead Birds

Thousands of dead birds could be linked to West Coast wildfires.   An “unprecedented” number of birds have recently died across the West — and some researchers suspect the West Coast’s raging wildfires could be to blame.  Experts haven’t been able to quantify the fatalities or pinpoint an exact cause of the mass die-off.  The total number of dead birds appears to be in the hundreds of thousands. Among the species impacted are warblers, swallows, and bluebirds.

Witnesses and researchers said some of the birds appeared to be acting bizarrely before dying — ones that usually hang in shrubs were spotted on the ground searching for food.  Scientists are asking the public to report sightings of dead birds to an online database, and that people safely collect the dead birds so that researchers can study them closer.  

New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, and Texas are also reporting similar situations and large amounts of dead birds.

NBC News