Gaggle Of 51 Geese Plummets From The Sky In Idaho: What Happened

IDAHO FALLS, ID — You know the line from “Superman” — “it’s a bird, it’s a plane …” It was a bird alright, actually many birds, that plummeted from the sky in Idaho Falls in what wildlife officials called a “freak accident.” The gaggle of 51 geese was found dead, soaking wet and clumped together after a destructive thunderstorm Saturday that brought golf ball-sized hail to the area.

The hail, which damaged siding, fences and playground equipment, likely didn’t deliver the death knell to the geese, though. Rather, officials with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game said they were most likely struck by lightning as they migrated north.

Geese can survive severe weather that produces hail.

“Hail would have injured the geese,” James Brower, regional volunteer services coordinator for the Idaho wildlife agency told Fox News. “They’d still be alive. All of these were dead. When the officer arrived, nothing was moving or twitching.”

The dead geese — 48 snow geese and three ross geese — were found within a 100-yard radius, which makes it likely lightning caused their deaths, Jacob Berl, a conservation officer, told the news station.

Injuries to the geese were consistent with a wildlife strike that sent them plummeting to the ground, Berl told the Idaho State Journal.

“Several of them had ruptured stomachs,” he told the newspaper. “Their internal organs had ruptured. ... So that more than likely happened from the lightning itself or potentially from the impact of the crash. These geese are migrating at several thousand feet in the air, so if they’re falling out of the sky and hitting pavement, you can imagine what that does to a goose’s body.”

Necropsies will be done on several of the geese to determine the official cause of death.

Retired Idaho State University professor Chuck Trost, who taught ornithology and animal behavior for 32 years, called the incident “bizarre.”

It’s rare, Berl agreed, but mass wildlife casualties aren’t all that unusual.

“It is common for diseases like influenza or other sorts of bird-borne diseases to cause mass die-offs of birds, but not for them to just fall out of the sky and land within a hundred yards of each other like that,” he said.

The geese were in the right place at the wrong time. Idaho is a popular flyway for geese in their spring migration. Up to 60,000 snow geese, white-fronted geese and other waterfowl stop over at the Fort Boise Wildlife Management Area every year.

“The birds typically leave warmer climes ranging from Baja, Mexico, to northern California and follow the snow line north,” the Idaho Department of Fish and Game said in a March 2017 online post.

“Mother nature is sometimes cruel to the wildlife kingdom,” Brower told Fox. “We worry about accidents with cars and trucks — sometimes animals are affected just by the weather.”

He added: “It’s always sad; it’s never something you want to see.”

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