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The Washington Post (17/Jul/1995) - Biology: Inspiration for Hitchcock?

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Biology: Inspiration for Hitchcock?

Alfred Hitchcock's chilling movie, "The Birds," never revealed the motivation of the title characters. Now a team of biologists believe they have solved the mystery: It was something the birds ate.

The film reportedly was inspired in part by a 1961 seabird riot around California's Monterey Bay, near where Hitchcock was living. The birds staggered around lawns, ran into things and pecked eight people.

A similar incident 30 years later in the same vicinity caught the attention of marine biologist David Garrison, of the University of California at Santa Cruz. He had been studying a substance called domoic acid, which is produced by a marine phytoplankton called Pseudo-nitzschia australis.

The staggering and other symptoms "resembling drunkenness" that were exhibited by the birds in the 1991 incident, he said, were "all consistent with neurological damage from domoic acid ... They were probably confused and panic-stricken."

The birds had also been "throwing up anchovies," a favorite seabird food in which domoic acid has been detected.

Domoic acid first came to wide attention in 1987, when 100 people were stricken on Canada's Prince Edward Island after eating mussels. Four died.

Today, seafood is screened for it, Garrison said.

The outbreaks most likely occur, he added, when a large school of anchovies dines on an unusually large bloom of contaminated plankton. But unless the outbreaks happen in a populated area, there is little chance they will be noticed by anyone — much less a famous film director.