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Up to
100,000 fish found dead along Arkansas River

Officials suspect disease, not pollutants, as cause of death

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Massive fish kill deepens dead bird mystery

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Arkansas Game and Fish Commission

Dead fish are seen along the Arkansas River.

msnbc.com staff and news service reports
msnbc.com staff and news service reports

updated 1/3/2011 2:50:48 PM
ET2011-01-03T19:50:48

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State officials on Monday were investigating why 80,000 to
100,000 fish washed up dead on the shores of the Arkansas River last week.

"The fish deaths will take about a month" to determine a cause, Keith
Stephens, a spokesman for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, told
msnbc.com.

Stephens also provided the estimate of 80,000 to 100,000 dead fish.

The fish were found Thursday by a tugboat operator along a 20-mile stretch of
the Arkansas River near the city of Ozark.

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The mass kill occurred just one day before thousands of blackbirds dropped
dead from the sky in Beebe, Ark., which is 125 miles away.

Officials said 95 percent of the fish that died were drum fish — indicating
that the likely cause of death was disease as only one species was affected.

"If it was from a pollutant, it would have affected all of the fish, not just
drum fish," Stephens added.

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Drum fish, which are bottom feeders, are not sought by fishermen, he added,
and fishing was not banned as a precaution. "Right now it's fine to fish," KTHV quoted Stephens as saying. "If you go out there you can still
fish for bass and crappie, catfish, it will be fine. Obviously don't eat the
dead fish."
Story: No poison found in birds that fell on town

Fish were still floating on the same stretch of river as of Monday
morning.

Stephens said that nature will be doing the cleanup. "We'll have raccoon and
birds and things like that will take care of it so there is really no cleanup,
it's really too big. It's contained along the river channel."

David Lyons, the head of a local chapter of the Sierra Club, told msnbc.com
that he was "waiting for the results of the pathology and toxicology tests
before I make any judgments about the bird and fish kills.

"So far, the evidence does not suggest that pollution contributed to either
the bird or fish kill," he added. "If the test results indicate that
contaminants were responsible, then local environmental groups will likely have
several questions and concerns about the two events."

© 2010 msnbc.com

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>>>we
mentioned this earlier and we're back now with the puzzling story of a
massive kill of wildlife in the state of arkansas. birds
falling out of the sky, the result of some sort of trauma. and fish found
dead in the water, thousands of them in separate incidents in
the same state. we get our report tonight from nbc's janet
shamlian.

>> reporter: they
rained down on a small arkansas town like a scene from a horror
movie. thousands of dead black birds. so many in the street, drivers could
barely avoid them.

>>i
went out to get the paper and i said, what is this? we probably had 14 or 15
just in the front yard.

>> reporter: as
many as 5,000 bird carcasses littered across a one-mile radius after
dropping from the sky on new year's eve. you had them just about
everywhere?

>>they were all over the place.

>> reporter: what
could have caused it? as they were examined, theories have run the gamete.
from their being hitly lightning or hail, to being spooked to death by new
year's eve fireworks.

>>they do have a lot of trauma. i mean, they were -- like they
were hit by something.

>> reporter: beyond
the birds and adding to the mystery, a massive fish kill also
here in arkansas. just one day earlier. as many as 100,000 drum
fish dead along a 20-mile stretch of the arkansas river. it's
100 miles from the dead birds but the internet was life with
conspiracy theories. one writing, 5,000 dead birds
, now 100,000 dead fish. definitely an alien invasion happening
in arkansas. the experts call it coincidence.

>>extremely unusual. having two events like this at
practically the same time, we don't think there's any connection
whatsoever.

>> reporter: officials
say the fish likely died of disease, not pollutant. janet
shamlian, nbc news, arkansas.

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Headlines

Up to 100,000 dead fish on Ark. River

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