Two-thousand birds and 100,000 fish died in Arkansas about 100 miles apart, and so far nobody knows the reason. The media is all over the story. Such news gives us a little fear because it seems like the beginning of a horror movie or an end-of-the world movie. Animals start dying for no reason, and then. . . .? For example, in Alfred Hitchock’s The Birds, a character in the movie refers to a real-life mystifying incident where birds in a California town started hitting buildings and dying, implying a connection to the later horror in the fictional story.
Hopefully, the scientists will figure out the causes. They at least partly solved the mystery of some of the honey bee deaths in recent years. Some scientists discovered the bees were dying from a combination of a fungus and a virus, even as the bee population continues to decline. But, if scientists do not discover the causes for the recent Arkansas fish and foul deaths, it is not such a bad thing for us to be bewildered for awhile. It sparks the imagination.
I have not watched The Birds in a long time. It was one of the first scary movies I saw as a child, so it carries disturbing baggage for me. The special effects seem unreal today, but the movie is still spooky. One of the best parts of the movie is that they never explain why the birds are attacking. Why are the birds suddenly attacking people? Does it have something to do with the lead character’s past? Alfred Hitchcock was a genius to not explain the attacks. By contrast, M. Night Shyamalan might have made The Happening a better movie had he learned that lesson. Unanswered dark questions terrify us more than the beaks and claws.
In honor of fallen feathered and gilled friends, check out the movie The Birds.
Bonus Byrds Explanation: For those of you who believe there must be a reason for the bird deaths, here are some Byrds who agree that everything has a time to every purpose under heaven.
Bonus Update (1/8/11): Google Maps now has a world map showing where the latest mass animal deaths have occurred.
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