IDAHO FALLS — More than 50 geese fell to the ground dead on Saturday due to lightning.
Jacob Berl, a conservation officer for Idaho Falls Fish and Game, received a report of large numbers of dead geese in a parking lot near the Idaho National Laboratory building in Idaho Falls at approximately 7:30 p.m. Saturday.
When Berl arrived at the scene, he found 51 geese lying dead in a conjoined parking lot. Forty-eight were snow geese and three of them were Ross’s Geese.
That night, a storm had developed between Atomic City and the American Falls Reservoir and strengthened as it moved toward Idaho Falls. A tornado briefly touched the ground three miles southeast of Atomic City with winds of 50 to 60 miles an hour. Minimal damage was reported.
“As the storm moved into the Idaho Falls area, it really started ramping up,” said John Keyes, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Pocatello.
There were multiple reports of hail that was as large as golf balls.
“We saw numerous reports of damage to windows,” Keyes said. “There were reports of siding that was damaged by hail, being driven into it by the strong wind and even vinyl fences. I even saw some pictures of some playground equipment that was damaged by hail falling through the plastic playground equipment.”
Keyes said that this storm wasn’t as destructive as some storms in the past. He also said it wasn’t necessarily an uncommon occurrence.
However, Keyes said the storm did produce “a lot of lightning,” some of which killed the geese in Idaho Falls.
Berl said the geese died within a 100- to 200-yard radius in the parking lot.
“Several of them had ruptured stomachs,” he said. “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.”
Berl also said that any other cause of death besides lightning in this case is unlikely.
“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,” Berl said.
Though Berl said he couldn’t speak to national trends, he did say that this is a rare occurrence.
Chuck Trost, a retired Idaho State University professor who taught ornithology and animal behavior, said that he had never heard about something like this occurring in his 32-year career.
Trost said that the incident was “bizarre.”
