"Thousands of birds have fallen from skies over Esperance
and no one knows why." - The Australian


Esperance is 450 miles southeast of Perth on the coast
of the Archipelago of the Recherche in southwestern Australia.
On Monday, January 8, 2007, Esperance, Australia, was declared a natural disaster zone after the "catastrophic" event of devastating floods following a "freak storm." Three weeks before in December 2006, the first reports of birds dropping dead in Esperance yards were reported to the Department of Environment and Conservation. Mike Fitzgerald, District Nature Conservation Co-ordinator, said: "We estimate several thousand birds are dead, although we don't have a clear number because of the large areas of bushland."

The size of the die-off is unprecedented, according to authorities, and included wattle birds, yellow-throated miners, new holland honeyeaters and singing honeyeaters, along with some crows, hawks and pigeons. So far, necropsies have ruled out infection, but the cause is still unknown.
January 10, 2007 Update: Only about six weeks ago at the end of November 2006, in Havelock North, New Zealand, hundreds of birds such as sparrows, blackbirds, starlings and magpies also were found dead, along with at least four cats and a dog who tried to eat the dead bird carcasses. Still no publicly reported answers to cause of deaths.
Havelock North is on east central
coast of North New Zealand.