I came home last night to an eerie sight: My lawn was littered with dozens of dead starlings. I don't know what exactly caused their deaths, whether they got into some bad food or were purposely poisoned, but I am leaning towards the latter.
Starlings are a pest, an invasive specie brought to the US in the 1800's to fill the world with all the birds mentioned in Shakespeare's plays (seriously). They have become one of the most abundant birds in agricultural and urban America and have been harmful to the populations of other cavity dwellers (like bluebirds). The USDA has poisoned them on many occasions in an effort to assist dairy farmers in getting rid of these birds which frequent barnyards, stealing feed meant for cows and pooping in the feed, making cows and calves sick.
I've been told that another person in Royalton found numerous dead starlings recently and the rumor is the USDA was poisoning the birds in town. I left a message with the local agencies in hopes of getting down to the cause of this mass die-off.
