Bird vomit may have caused raining fish in Texas, scientists say Cormorants, which are commonly found in the area, have a nasty habit of regurgitating their food.

Ariana Garcia
June 22, 2022


Cormorants regurgitating fish may have been behind fish raining over Texarkana in December, researchers say.passion4nature/Getty Images/iStockphoto

They say don't run right after eating. Apparently, that applies to flying too. Two independent researchers recently shared their findings that bird regurgitation is likely what caused fish to rain from the sky over Texarkana in late December.

Residents in the East Texas town encountered the fishy phenomenon after strong thunderstorms moved through the area. While some experts theorized that the fish may have gotten swept up by waterspouts, National Weather Service meteorologists told the Dallas Morning News that data shows there was no such activity in the area at the time. 

Sharon Hill, a geologist and independent researcher based in Pennsylvania, and Paul Cropper, an author in Australia, found evidence indicating that a flock of birds, specifically cormorants, may have regurgitated the fish while flying over Texarkana.

"We're both interested in finding out what, if anything, happened in a strange situation," Hill told the Dallas Morning News. "We're not going to be dismissive, we're not going to default to a paranormal explanation, but we're looking to document what happened and what can be the possible natural causes.

The pair, who previously worked separately on similar investigations related to natural phenomena, collected evidence from the area and reached out to locals who reported seeing the fish to rule out several theories. They first determined that the incident was not a hoax. "This was one of the better ones, because we had never seen fish-fall being documented over such a wide area," Hill told the Dallas Morning News.

They also ruled out the idea that flooding washed fish up onto the ground, because the fish were found to be above ground level, in truck beds and rooftops. The fish were also not dropped from a plane, Hill told the Dallas Morning News, since no records backed up that theory.

"The last one that we knew that was a reasonable explanation was the birds, either carrying them in their beaks, their talons or their stomachs," Hill told the Morning News. The fish, which were later identified as Gizzard shad, also had characteristics indicative of partial digestion, Hill and Cropper found. Additionally, cormorants have a habit of expelling their stomach contents, they said.

The pair also studied security footage from a Discount Tire in Texarkana that appears to show six fish hitting the ground during the storm. The video evidence supports that fish did indeed fall from the sky that day, Hill reported. 

Residents told Hill and Cropper that they had seen cormorants around the time the fish fell from the sky in December. Hill and Cropper also spoke to Paul Merlich, executive director of the Texarkana Regional Airport, who told them flocks of cormorants regularly fly near the airport, the Dallas Morning News reported. They usually appear around the same time that the Dec. 29 storm moved through the area, he said. 

Mehrlich told the Morning News that cormorants typically migrate through the area between fall and spring. He also said that on the day of the storm, staff found fish "all over" the airport runway. Crews had to shovel up ten pounds of fish, causing a delay for one of the planes at the airport, he said. 

The University of Texas Biodiversity Center in Austin will verify Hill and Cropper's findings. However, Hill told the Dallas Morning News the pair is confident in their conclusion.