Sudden fowl fatalities bring a new bird mystery to San Francisco Bay Area
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Stranded, hungry pelicans are being found along California's coast
International Bird Rescue treated more than 400 brown pelicans in 2024, when this video was taken, and is closing in on 200 this year.
SAN FRANCISCO – In the classic film 'The Birds,'' flocks of crows and other species suddenly and viciously attack people for no apparent reason. Now another Bay Area-based mystery has emerged involving avian creatures, though this time they're the ones in danger.
Residents of East Richmond Heights, an East Bay community less than 15 miles from San Francisco, have reported in recent weeks increasing numbers of birds dropping dead to the ground from power lines. Popping sounds similar to firecrackers have been heard moments before the birds' deaths.
A sign attached to a wooden pole in the area of the incidents says, 'Over 50 birds have died + continue to die here after landing on the top power line,'' but it's not clear the electricity wires have anything to do with the fowl fatalities.
Neighbors have found carcasses in their yards and on the street, creating an eerie feeling and growing alarm, not unlikely the reaction from locals in the 1963 suspense drama from acclaimed director Alfred Hitchcock, set mostly in the Sonoma County town of Bodega Bay.
Maximillian Bolling of Richmond told KGO-TV, an ABC affiliate in San Francisco, that he has seen a number of birds abruptly plummet to their demise, and that between himself and neighbors they have spotted at least 13 of their corpses.
Plummeting to a 'really violent' death
'So when they land and it happens, they just quickly explode and it's really violent,'' he told the station.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife said it's investigating after residents raised concerns the birds might have been electrocuted. In a statement to USA TODAY, the department said it examined two dead birds – a mourning dove and a European starling – sent in by Northern California energy provider PG&E.
The DFW lab staff 'found no signs of electrocution in the collected birds,'' the statement said. 'The birds did show injuries consistent with trauma that could possibly have been caused by pellet gun, BB gun or a slingshot.''
Photos of other birds from that location also showed traumatic injuries, the department said, adding that it couldn't determine their cause.
That raises the possibility of someone intentionally harming the birds, and the Contra Costa County sheriff's department has been notified.
PG&E validated, but some still skeptical
The DFW analysis seems to validate PG&E's contention that it's not at fault in this matter, although neighbors expressed skepticism to KGO, questioning whether a BB gun could make a firecracker-like sound or a shooter could display such consistent accuracy.
The utility has yet to regain the trust of many people in Northern California after its equipment set off devastating wildfires in the region in recent years.
Nonetheless, spokesperson Tamar Sarkissian said the company appreciated its customers' concerns for the birds.
'PG&E does not believe that there was an issue with our electrical equipment and agrees that these birds were not electrocuted,'' she said in a statement, adding that, 'The pole at issue is compliant with avian safe guidance, as established by the Avian Powerline Interaction Committee.''
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