Mapping the mysterious animal die-offs
It all seems rather biblical, doesn’t it? You’ve got birds falling from the sky in Arkansas and Louisiana — and even Sweden — and millions of dead fish rolling up on shore everywhere from Maryland to Thailand. There’s even been an incident of mass bat deaths in New Mexico.
Now, before we start looking for the locusts, pestilence and/or a big meteor falling on us, let it be known that there are perfectly rational explanations for all this. Most can be attributed to big shifts in weather patterns, high levels of pollution and, in one bird death case, scaring the poor things to death with fireworks on New Year’s. And apparently, animals have mass die-offs all the time. We just happened to be paying attention this time around.
And as this Huffington Post article points out, there have been far creepier — and far deadlier — events to worry about in both recent and ancient history.
Some enterprising individual has created a Google Map where you can track the latest animal casualities. Kind of macabre, really. Poor critters.
But with that said..somebody’s got to be playing with this idea somewhere, writing-wise. Thousands of birds dying and falling to the Earth? Millions of dead fish? Bats? Manatees? It is just ripe for the sci-fi/fantasy pickings. Maybe we’ve got a world-wide cabal of modern wizards doing something Man Was Not Meant to Do, with animal die-offs as a side effect. Maybe it’s UFO encounters — are they coming in peace, or are they scouts for an invasion? (Can’t wait for V to start up again!) Perhaps the sites listed on the Google Map are related somehow, and if you played connect the dots the right way, they create some sort of evil sigil that’ll unlock an ancient evil from its long-ago prison….
Sometimes, this stuff really CAN write itself.
I just hope I can write something before May 21, 2011, when the world’s supposed to end with the Second Coming. Or by December 2012, when the Mayan calendar runs out. Or…..
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Michael J. Martinez 