We got tens of thousands of views last year on a few posts about mass bird deaths (mostly in Arkansas) and what possibly caused the deaths of these birds. There were many possible explanations. I read countless articles on the matter, and many more comments. While many ideas were put forward, none were definitive.

If only someone had asked the USDA….

Apparently, under the radar (so to speak), the information as to what was killing the birds was available for anyone to see. The birds were killed by the USDA. Here’s a screenshot of a USDA page documenting the agency’s work, showing that nearly one million red-winged blackbirds (and many other birds and animals) were “intentionally killed” by the USDA in 30 states in 2009.

Yeah, blackbirds aren’t the only thing they kill.

Other birds they’ve killed include:

Brown-headed cowbirds: 1,046,109

European Starlings: 1,259,714

Canadian geese: 24,519

Grackles: 93,210

Pigeons: 96,297

And tens of thousands, each, of over a dozen other bird species.

The full list is 37 pages long at the moment… and is just for 2009.

The blackbird-killing program actually has the name “Bye Bye Blackbird” — friendly, eh?

Why does the USDA kill these birds and other animals?

Take a guess!

Well, you know what USDA stands for, right? U.S. Department of Agriculture. It is killing off millions, or even hundreds of millions of animals to keep them away from farmers’ crops or the food their animals eat.

More from Earth-issues:

“A Nebraska farmer was apparently complaining that the starlings were defecating in his feed meal. The answer to this conundrum apparently isn’t to cover your feed meal but rather call the USDA and ask them to poison thousands of birds.

“The USDA complied, apparently agreeing this was a brilliant idea. So they put out a poison called DRC-1339 and allowed thousands of birds to feed on that poison.”

And here’s more from Natural News on the ridiculousness of some of these killings:

“… since when did sparrows, starlings and blackbirds ever pose a real threat to anyone? They’re not going to fly off with your cow, and to blame these birds for eating the grain being fed to the cows is ridiculous in the first place because cows aren’t supposed to eat grain.

“Cows are supposed to eat grass. If you are running a cow operation where the birds are eating your grain and you think the birds are the problem, the real problem is that you’re feeding cows the wrong food! If you raise your cows on grass, the birds don’t get into the grain and you don’t have to poison the birds.

“You see, when one ecological element gets out of balance (feeding grain to cows, for example), it then causes another problem that must be dealt with in some other destructive way (such as poisoning the birds). This cycle of disharmony continues and escalates until entire ecosystems are out of whack. Then the USDA shows up with a pickup truck full of poison bait and goes to work poisoning animals.

“The solution isn’t to keep poisoning animals and trying to control populations through toxic chemicals but rather to return to holistic web-of-life farming methods that work in harmony with nature rather than treating nature as the enemy.”

For more on how the US government is wasting your money, check out the Natural News piece linked above.

This whole thing really is a pity, eh? Well, not just a pity, it’s utterly disgusting and a little concerning. What else is the USDA up to that we’re not aware of?

Dead blackbird (killed by USDA?) by Jacob Whittaker