prompting certain strange corners of the internet to break out the special font for "it's the end of the world and we're all going to die." okay. it's a little freaky to wake up to as many as 5,000 dead birds and people in hazmat gear collecting them. >> been to iraq and back and not seen nothing like this. you know my kids are out here playing and you don't know if it's safe or because they're all walking around in chemical suits picking them up with gas masks and everything. >> it does not apetr world is ending even if we're still not sure exactly what happened to the red winged black birds. the arkansas state veterinarian says the black birds appear to have been killed by trauma in mid air. it could be they were blasted out of the sky by the weather, by lightning and hail moving through the area. or by new year's fireworks in which case we've got a few alternatives coming up in just a moment. post script. the 100,000 fish in arkansas that just turned up dead a few towns over, we may not know what