{"id":2674,"date":"2021-01-20T03:39:54","date_gmt":"2021-01-19T16:39:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.realclimaterecords.com.au\/?p=2674"},"modified":"2021-01-20T03:39:54","modified_gmt":"2021-01-19T16:39:54","slug":"museum-makes-unique-death-census-30-july-1932-the-figures-run-into-billions-birds-die-from-heat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.realclimaterecords.com.au\/?p=2674","title":{"rendered":"Museum Makes Unique Death Census. 30 July 1932 The figures run into billions. Birds die from heat."},"content":{"rendered":"

Museum Makes Unique Death Census (1932, July 30). The Mail (Adelaide, SA : 1912 – 1954)<\/i>, p. 2. Retrieved January 20, 2021, from https:\/\/trove.nla.gov.au\/newspaper\/article\/59308062#<\/a><\/p>\n

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SOMETHING new in a census has been undertaken by the Adelaide Museum.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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It is a death census, and already the figures run into billions.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The ornithologists at the Museum (Dr. Morgan and Mr. Sutton) are on the gigantic task of recording, as near as possible, the number of birds that perished last summer in the interior of Australia.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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They already have records from many outposts in the Far North, but they want readers of\u2019 \u201cThe Mail\u201d and \u201cThe News\u201d to send in particulars of any other great losses.<\/div>\n
It is thought that the greatest number of deaths was caused by the excessive heat rather than thirst.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The honorary mammologist of the Museum (Mr. H. H. Finlayson) during a collecting trip into the Far North reported the death of hundreds of birds. Great numbers were killed alone by the fortnightly train to Alice Springs. These fell exhausted on the railway line.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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A large number flew into the fans in the carriages and perished.<\/div>\n
Thousands fell exhausted in water pools and were drowned.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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A letter from Minnie Downs told of the death of thousands of birds on one day.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The temperature that day was 125 degrees in the shade\u2014 and there was no shade.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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One woman at Tarcoola filled a 40-gallon drum, with shell parrots in one afternoon.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Trees actually snapped under the strain of flight after flight of birds which swarmed exhausted on them. More than 60,000 dead parrots, it was estimated, were in one dam. Dams and wells for hundreds of miles were piled with dead birds.<\/div>\n
In places the dead birds were lying two feet deep over the ground.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Almost every bushman is a bird lover, and they saved thousands of their feathered friends.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Museum Makes Unique Death Census (1932, July 30). The Mail (Adelaide, SA : 1912 – 1954), p. 2. Retrieved January […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[1024,48,23,1025,21,156,1026],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realclimaterecords.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2674"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realclimaterecords.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realclimaterecords.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realclimaterecords.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realclimaterecords.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2674"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.realclimaterecords.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2675,"href":"https:\/\/www.realclimaterecords.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2674\/revisions\/2675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realclimaterecords.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realclimaterecords.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realclimaterecords.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}