AN EXPLANATION HAS BEEN found for the latest mass bird fatality – they drank themselves to death.
Dozens of dead starlings were discovered on the outskirts of Constanta, eastern Romania, on Saturday.
Worried residents alerted authorities, fearing the birds had died from avian flu, the BBC reports.
But local veterinary officials decided the starlings had died after eating grape ‘marc’ – the leftovers from the wine-making process.
However, local veterinary officials have determined that the birds actually died after eating a by-product of wine making. Veterinary authority chief Romeu Lazar told Reuters that tests on the birds revealed the presence of a pulpy grape residue in their gizzards.
Lazar did not know where they had eaten the grape resident but said if the weather had not been so severe, the birds’s alternative food sources would have diluted the alcohol which poisoned them.
Experts have also solved the deaths of around 100 birds discovered on a highway in California a week ago. The San Fransisco Chronicle reports that the birds are believed to have accidentally flown into the direct path of an oncoming truck.
Other mass bird and sealife deaths have been attributed to unusually severe weather this winter, but a number – including the Arkansas bird deaths at the beginning of this month – remain unexplained.
Read: Mass animal deaths around the world mapped >
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