Birds have been falling from the sky - 500 in Lousianna, 3,000 in Arkansas and over a hundred in Sweden. This massive death toll of red-winged blackbirds and jackdaws is shocking on its own, but add in the 100,000 dead drum fish found along the river banks of the Ozark and the tens of thousands of dead spot and croaker fish along the Maryland coast at Chesapeake Bay—the situation seems even more bizarre.
Theories of fireworks scaring the birds, UFO’s, terrorist activity, lightning strikes and biblical plagues have been flying around the internet faster than any bird can fly or fish can swim. Samples of these birds and fish are being tested by authorities many of which appear to have suffered some sort of physical trauma. It makes one wonder if the effects of our continual environmental pollution are finally coming to fruition or if the whole thing is simply coincidental. I also wonder what would happen if the ‘officials’ who are testing a small sample of the effected critters found out that the birds or fish had been poisoned by us if it would get out to the general public right away or not. One has to hope that the answer is yes.
It seems that people have a hard time keeping their mouths shut about anything these days, but there are still those that do. Not everyone is a blabbermouth, but everyone has theories. It is weird though how some of these same people who seem ready to spout rhetoric after the fact rarely come forward beforehand. Like with Jared Lee Loughner. It seems pretty clear as details of Loughner’s life emerge, that the guy was not in his right mind. The guy was completely disruptive at the community college he attended in Arizona - so much so that they suspended him and recommended he seek out mental health treatment.
Schools all across North America have hired Threat Assessment teams to evaluate the mental stability levels of students. The purpose is to weed the truly dangerous students out from the goofy ones. Universities and colleges know there is a need, especially in light of the massacre of 32 students in 2007 at Virginia Tech University. The perpetrator, Seung-Hui Cho had been identified as a someone who was mentally ill.
The world has become a lot more confusing than it once was. Humans are different than other living beings. We destroy where we live, we kill sometimes just to kill and we don’t try to live in harmony with others. I sometimes think that humans are so busy trying to impress one another that they have forgotten about the evolution of nature.
Life on Earth is precious and should be valued. There is much to be learned from the creatures around us. We should question mass death of any kind whether human or some other life form. Whether nature is the cause or the consequence, it doesn’t matter. We need to cherish not destroy. We need to ask is the sky falling because of us or in spite of us? And if we find an answer, fix it.