Post by Dave Homewood on Dec 29, 2023 13:40:17 GMT 12
This is a rather shocking use of an aeroplane, from the Press, dated 19th of February 1975. I wonder what the disease was they supposedly carried that forced this cull? And how many other bird species they killed too.
Birds killed en masse
(N.Z. Press Assn—Copyright) PADUCAH (Kentucky), February 17.
The Kentucky city of Paducah stole a march on the United States Army over the week-end, and sprayed about 1.5 million disease-carrying blackbirds with a detergent which left them lying in thousands of piles.
Fort Campbell and Christian County, 80 miles south-east of Paducah, received another delay in their bird-eradication plans when the Defence Department ruled that an environmental study of their areas must be made first. But Paducah had already sprayed, and before dawn yesterday birds, numbed by the intense cold, dropped from their roosts and skittered along the ground.
Later, they huddled together for warmth, and then began dying by the thousand.
About 1400 gallons of the detergent, tergitol, mixed with water, were sprayed on the birds by a light aircraft at tree-top level. The pilot made 15 passes over the densely-wooded area of farms and woodlands that served as roosting places.
Tergitol draws out the natural oil from the birds’ feathers, and rain washes it away, causing the birds to die in near-freezing temperatures.
A resident of the area, watching the dying birds huddling together for warmth under trees, said: “It’s a bad sight. I was in favour of this before it happened, but now I don’t know.”
Birds killed en masse
(N.Z. Press Assn—Copyright) PADUCAH (Kentucky), February 17.
The Kentucky city of Paducah stole a march on the United States Army over the week-end, and sprayed about 1.5 million disease-carrying blackbirds with a detergent which left them lying in thousands of piles.
Fort Campbell and Christian County, 80 miles south-east of Paducah, received another delay in their bird-eradication plans when the Defence Department ruled that an environmental study of their areas must be made first. But Paducah had already sprayed, and before dawn yesterday birds, numbed by the intense cold, dropped from their roosts and skittered along the ground.
Later, they huddled together for warmth, and then began dying by the thousand.
About 1400 gallons of the detergent, tergitol, mixed with water, were sprayed on the birds by a light aircraft at tree-top level. The pilot made 15 passes over the densely-wooded area of farms and woodlands that served as roosting places.
Tergitol draws out the natural oil from the birds’ feathers, and rain washes it away, causing the birds to die in near-freezing temperatures.
A resident of the area, watching the dying birds huddling together for warmth under trees, said: “It’s a bad sight. I was in favour of this before it happened, but now I don’t know.”
