This is getting ridiculous.

“[A]n estimated 500 birds that littered a quarter-mile stretch of highway,” in Louisiana, according to the AP. Oh, and apparently in Kentucky too only numbering in the dozens, so that barely qualifies as a story.

Obviously, no one in the MSM is concerned about getting an exact body count but an “estimated 500” is certainly better than the Journal’s stab of “Between 1,000 and 5,000.”

As for the cause, well, everyone seems to have a theory but the conclusion we’re most inclined to believe is along the lines of “we’ve got no fucking idea”:

“There was probably some physical reason, but I doubt anyone will ever know what it was,” Thurman Booth, Arkansas’ wildlife services director, told CBS.

The latest occurrence of more dead birds turning up in Louisiana only compounds local residents’ worries, as in the week prior to the Arkansas blackbird mystery, 83,000 dead drum fish washed up along a river about 100 miles west of Beebe. Wildlife officials claim the incidents are not related.

Oh, right. The fish. People are needed to count fish too.