Police have ‘explanation’ over Anglesey bird deaths mystery

Police believe they know what killed hundreds of starlings and said a similar incident occurred at the same spot about 12 years ago.

About 225 starlings were found with blood on their bodies on an Anglesey lane on Tuesday afternoon.

Dafydd Edwards, whose partner found the birds, said it was as if “they had dropped down dead from the sky”.

PC Dewi Evans told BBC Radio 4: “We have actually been developing an explanation for what happened.”

“It’s a rational explanation, but we’re not going to be revealing what we think the explanation is until such time as the investigation’s complete,” PC Evans, from North Wales Police’s Rural Crime Team, said.

He said people had contacted the force with “all sorts of weird and wonderful theories”.

“It’s interesting because when you do research on this phenomenon… it seems to have happened on many occasions in the past.

“But what’s particularly strange, if you will, about this case is that it seems that this exact phenomenon happened in the same spot about 12 years ago.”
Mr Edwards, 41, said his partner Hannah Stevens first saw the birds alive as she went to an appointment.

“She said she saw hundreds of them flying over and thought it looked amazing but on her way back around an hour later they were all dead in the road.”

The Animal and Plant Health Agency collected them for testing and will examine whether they could have been poisoned.

A spokesman for the RSPB said on Wednesday: “This is obviously very concerning for us and we will await the test results.

“It would be inappropriate for us to speculate as to how they have died.”

Source: (BBC News)