Bird deaths shut down downtown Austin
AUSTIN, Texas - Police shut down several blocks of businesses in the heart of downtown Austin early Monday after dozens birds were found dead in the street.Experts were testing for any sort of environmental contaminant or gas or chlorine leaks that might of killed off the animals, police spokeswoman Toni Chovanetz said. The carcasses were found overnight along Congress Avenue between Sixth and Eighth streets. There were no reports of any humans harmed, but the main north-south route through downtown, several side streets and all buildings in the area were blocked off and expected to remain closed until about noon, Chovanetz said
Strange morning, eh?
Yep, that's odd.
Let's see if there is an update yet.
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http://www.kxancom
http://www.kxan.com/Global/story.asp?S=5904817&nav=0s3d
"Congress Avenue Re-Opens Following Bird Deaths"
Jan 8, 2007 01:00 PM
ARTICLE SNIPPET: "Austin police have re-opened a 10-block stretch of Congress Avenue, hours after 63 dead birds were found in Downtown Austin."
ARTICLE SNIPPET: "They still don't know what killed the birds. However, one bird has been sent to a lab in Ames, Iowa, to be tested for avian flu. Another bird is being sent to College Station, Texas, to determine whether it might have been poisoned. That said, KXAN has been told that officials don't believe that a bird flu was the likely cause of this incident Monday morning.
"Typically what we see in large bird die-offs is severe weather, actually -- strong winds, hail storms," Valadez said."
ARTICLE SNIPPET: "Valadez said there were 63 dead birds found. The dead birds included grackles, pigeons and sparrows.
"The preliminary test that were done include a gas chromatography of the exterior of the bird, looking for organo-phosphates or pesticides. That can also cause illness in humans. We also did necropsy or dissection of birds looking for further evidence of poisoning from that respect. Those were all preliminary results but negative," Valadez said.
The fire department was called out to the area around 3 a.m. on Monday to test if there had been a gas or chlorine leak, but nothing of that nature was found."
ARTICLE SNIPPET: "Officials say anyone who may find dead birds in their area can call 311 to make a report."