LEWISTON – Residents of the neighborhood next to the Promenade Mall are puzzled over dozens of dead crows that seem to be dropping from the sky.

According to Damien Perreault, 71, of Dumont Avenue, dead crows have been popping up along the tree line that separates the parking lot of the Promenade Mall and Summit Avenue over the past two weeks.

Perreault, who walks along the perimeter of the parking lot every day, says he found 10 dead crows along his morning walk just Monday.

“I picked them up and threw them in the Dumpster,” he said Monday night. “But there were still a couple hanging in the trees.”

Ray Beaudoin, a resident of Summit Avenue, said he first noticed the dead crows a couple of weeks ago when his neighbor brought them to his attention. He immediately called Animal Control Officer Wendell Strout.

Strout went to the scene last Friday and collected one of the birds for examination.

“I looked at the bird pretty closely, and I couldn’t find any evidence of a gunshot or pellet gun wound,” Strout said Monday evening.

Strout said he contacted state environmental agencies that could test the bird, but could not attract any interest. He reasoned that because the season for the West Nile virus is well past, nobody felt there was any reason to test the dead crow.

Dan Marquis, second vice president of the Stanton Bird Club, agreed that it is awfully late in the year for a case of West Nile.

According to Beaudoin, the dead crows finally attracted the interest of the U.S. Department of Agriculture late last week and a few of the birds were collected for testing.

Strout speculated that it could be anywhere from a week to a month before results from the tests are available.

Marquis, who lives on Essex Street, which borders the Promenade Mall, said residents fed up with the big population of crows in the area may be to blame for the deaths.

“I think intentional poisoning is worth looking into,” Marquis said Monday. “Crows are scavengers, and if someone puts out bread with poison on it, they’ll eat it.”

Crows can be very noisy and messy if they are roosting, Marquis explained.

“When they are roosting, they will stay up all night squawking,” he said. “And when you wake up in the morning, you’ll find the drive-way and street full of droppings.”

Beaudoin said that hundreds of crows can usually be found hovering in the trees between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. every day.

“But in the last three or four days, the crows are nowhere to be found,” he said. “It’s quite eerie.”

Strout guessed that the crows could be falling ill from pollution emitted from a nearby smoke stack. Marquis also reasoned that there could be other reasons for the rash of deaths.

“It is possible that they took a drink out of a puddle filled with anti-freeze or some other pollution,” he said.

Perreault, however, remains suspicious. He says such a simple answer doesn’t jibe with the large number of dead crows he has seen.

“And why are they only being found along the tree line?” he asked. “It seems that we should be finding them everywhere.”

Perreault also worries about a neighborhood dog or cat coming across one of the birds and contracting some illness.

“There is a possibility that if an animal ate or picked at one of the dead birds, they could also fall ill,” Marquis said.