It may sound like something from a horror movie but lately, Irvine has been seeing scores of dead crows turn up around the city. Specifically, these were found at Jamboree and Main, as well as Sofi Irvine. However, they have also been sighted further afield. This isn’t just a couple of crows either, and the numbers have unsurprisingly left locals very confused as to what is going on.

As ever in life, it seems that when you look at the science, suddenly things become a lot clearer. It turns out that the main theory surrounding the death of these crows is based on the West Nile Virus. This is contracted by mosquito bites and is quite deadly amongst crows. As it’s that time of year when mosquitos are becoming more prominent in Irvine, this theory actually makes a lot of sense.

Others speculated that it could be bird flu or bird poisoning. Hopefully, it is not the latter, as crows are not pests and are actually very intelligent creatures. As mentioned though, at this point, the West Nile Virus looks to be the most likely cause of death for these poor birds.

It turns out that Irvine happens to have a fairly high crow population, and while the reason for this is not known – a viral outbreak could harm the local crow community significantly. Returning to the here and now, we still don’t have any concrete evidence as to why these crows are dying – but hopefully it gets sorted soon.