Sully!
Posted on 03/08/2009 7:17:18 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
BALD EAGLE — Last Friday morning, many commuters on their way to State College observed a strange event.
During the thundershower on Feb. 27, some unseen force knocked a flock of Canada geese from the air near the Bald Eagle exit of Interstate 99 in Blair County.
Richard Bishop of Tyrone witnessed the last few geese fall.
“I was just coming under the underpass after exiting from I-99,” Bishop said. “We were on our way to Ohio when I saw this blur of something dropping from the sky. When we got closer, there were dead geese all over the road in front of us. They were scattered over about 150 yards near where Route 350 breaks off to head to Warriors Mark. None of the geese was moving.”
Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Charles Wilt happened by at about the same time and moved the dead geese to the side of the road.
“A couple of birds appeared to have been run over by cars after they fell, but most of them didn’t show any outward damage,” Trooper Wilt reported. “I thought that maybe they had been struck by lightning.” Trooper Wilt observed no live geese. Advertisement
Lion Country Supply manager Randy Carlson and employee Phil Allison, of Alexandria, also investigated the strange event. On his way to work, Allison had been driving through that area at about the same time as Bishop. Allison reported that he came upon the geese just a minute or two after a loud clap of thunder.
“The geese were all over the road and also along the edges and even back in the woods,” Carlson said. “It just seemed that they dropped from the sky stone dead. Maybe they were struck by lightning.”
Pennsylvania Game Commission officer Steve Hanczar investigated the incident and collected nine geese for examination at the Animal Diagnostic Laboratory at Penn State University.
According to Terry Clevenger, dispatcher in the Southcentral Office of the PGC, a total of 56 geese were involved, but counts by Carlson and others put the number at 44.
“A necropsy was performed at PSU on the geese, and they all had crushed breastbones and trachea, with no sign of electrocution,” Clevenger said. “Although they are continuing the investigation, the most likely explanation is that they were thrown to the ground by a severe downdraft during the storm.”
Game Commission veterinarian Dr. Walter Cottrell agreed with the assessment of damage, but hedged on the possible cause. “The geese all had quite severe trauma to their undersides, including massive bruising and crushed breastbones. It is no doubt that they died from hitting the pavement or ground, and the force involved was more than just a bad landing. The avian pathologist who examined the geese detected no burns or lesions that might typically result from lightning.
“It must have been a quick but painful death,” Cottrell said in a phone interview. “It might have been a combination of poor visibility, wind, and disoriented geese.”
Penn State professor of Wildlife Resources Margaret Brittingham fielded several reports from friends who suspected lightning when they saw all the dead geese shortly after the storm. Brittingham questioned whether geese could even be electrocuted in mid-air. Cottrell declined to comment as to whether birds could be killed in mid-air by lightning.
Whether the incident was caused by downdraft, lightning, or a combination of factors, all agreed that this was a very unusual event. The PGC gathered up the remainder of the geese on March 3. The investigation was still continuing at the time of this writing.
“..some of the operators would turn on the radar frying the birds. They would fall down to the deck where other crew men would kick them overboard. Then the officers would come out and yell at everyone involved.”
Officers don’t have to clean the bird droppings off the antenna, the boat, etc.
Pennsylvania. I put it in the keywords.
That episode is on hulu.com.
Free airkill. Roast with potatoes and cranberries.
Reminds me of the old joke/story. Two airplanes were lining up to take off, when the control tower contacted them to tell then that there was a dead deer on Runway 7.
The first plane confirmed it and said it would avoid it. The second plane radioed the tower, saying: “We see it and have already notified our caterer.”
Bon Appetit!
Wonder if hail could have an effect....konking on the heads as a shock (concussion) and then they fall to the ground.
Just a guess...not an expert!
Re “Cackling geese”. Did anyone see Nancy Pelosi in that flock? Any flock? I swear I heard her flying overhead near DC in a flock of Canadian Geese. A worse cackle than that of the Wicked Witch of the West. Oh, she IS the Wicked Witch of the West. Sorry.
The WKRP turkey drop.
My dad told that when he was a kid in depression times (New York state) he delivered newspapers early in the morning. One morning there were dead geese all over the fields. The folks in the area had goose for dinner for a couple of days. The geese probably flew into a thick cloud bank and couldn’t see. They will just fold up their wings and fall to the ground. Ducks will do the same thing.
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