Weaver advised AFP on March 13 that the video was “filmed on February ninth on Goose Lake, simply southwest of Watertown, South Dakota.”
“These are lesser snow geese, a species native to North America, that do not live in China in any capacity,” he stated.
Weaver advised the Outdoor Life journal that the video was despatched to him by his good friend Nate Phinney, who shot it in Watertown, South Dakota (archived link).
‘Not present in China’
Chris Elphick, an affiliate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology on the University of Connecticut, advised AFP in an electronic mail that the birds within the video largely seem like snow geese, which “don’t match any of the wild geese species present in China” (archived link).
He stated the birds’ reason behind dying can’t be confirmed with out testing them for illness or an post-mortem.
“As the Instagram poster notes, many are juvenile birds, which one would anticipate to be essentially the most vulnerable people within the inhabitants,” Elphick stated.
Ming Ma, vp of the Chinese Ornithological Society and a professor on the Chinese Academy of Sciences, advised AFP the declare is “ridiculous” (archived link).
In an electronic mail on March 11, he stated the low temperatures didn’t kill a big variety of birds.
Feng Xu, an affiliate professor on the Chinese Academy of Sciences, advised AFP: “This chicken shouldn’t be present in Xinjiang” (archived link).
“As far as I do know, there have been no mass chicken deaths in Xinjiang this winter because of the sudden drop in temperature or avian influenza,” he added.
A key phrase search discovered no official studies of mass chicken deaths in Xinjiang this winter.
Xinjiang’s official “rumour-refuting platform“, hosted by the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission in affiliation with Xinhua, has additionally debunked this declare saying “there have been no casualties to people, livestock, or birds” throughout the chilly snap (archived hyperlinks here and here).
