Nearly 60 poisoned birds fell from the sky in front of bystanders and an elementary school in Australia, The Guardian reports.
When Sarah King, founder of local nonprofit Casper's Bird Rescue, arrived at the scene, a few of them were already dead. She told The Guardian that the rest were screaming in pain with blood flowing from their eyes and beaks.
“What we were seeing was something out of a horror movie,” she told the outlet.
King believes the birds were poisoned since the short-billed species of corella—a type of cockatoo—is known to be a pest in Australia. They are also famous for killing crops and damaging power lines. Comparatively, the long-billed corella is a protected species, and any person who kills them could face jail and fines.
“It’s not an instant death,” King told The Guardian. “It causes suffering. It takes a few weeks for it to work. It starts internally and they have internal bleeding. It is a horrific, slow death.”
"The birds that have been affected are the protected species of the long-bill corella," she continued. "It is an important fact to get out there. Of the 60-odd that we found, only three were the non-protected species.”
Veterinarians had to euthanize the corella birds that hadn’t yet died. Of the 60, 7News Adelaide reported that only one survived.
