The wounded survivors of Bird Crash Utah 2011.
When looking down at the world from high above, those vast expanses of concrete that humans use to park cars must look awfully inviting to birds, especially when covered in snow. Sometimes, mistakes are made–fatal mistakes–and we’re not talking about a human firing off parking lot pepper spray on Black Friday. A flock of thousands of eared grebes, a migratory bird similar to a duck, made a serious mistake in St. George, Utah. Thousands of birds smashed into a snow-covered Walmart parking lot after mistaking it for a body of water. The parking lot was beneath 3 inches of snow at the time.
“They’re just everywhere,” said Teresa Griffin, a wildlife program manager for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. “It’s been nonstop. All our employees are driving around picking them up, and we’ve got so many people coming to our office and dropping them off.” Said Griffin of the incident, “The storm clouds over the top of the city lights made it look like a nice, flat body of water. All the conditions were right. So the birds landed to rest, but ended up slamming into the pavement.”
The bird crash is described as one of the worst ones in memory, with up to 1500 birds currently believed dead, and more than 3000 birds injured by the accidental smashing. A similar incident lead to 4500 bird deaths in Arkansas earlier this year, which was transformed into an NMA News video.
Tags: bird crash, mass bird crash, birds crash into the earth, birds mistake parking lots for water and smash into them, St. George, Utah, Teresa Griffin, Utah Division of Wildlife Resource, unusual accidents, thousands of birds smash into Utah parking lot, Walmart, thousands of birds smash into snow-covered Walmart parking lot, accidents, animals, nature, birds, eared grebes
