In a case of shocking animal cruelty, people have been smuggling Cockatoo birds through airport customs in water bottles with hardly any wiggle room. When it comes to earning money, some people will do just about anything. As long as it involves not getting caught they’ll sink much lower than you’d ever imagine. Luckily, the customs people caught these would-be cockatoo sellers before they managed to do a similar operation again.

Birds have a large black market because they are small and can be sold for lots of money. Just one of these Cockatoos can go for over 650 British pounds. That’s getting closer to around $1,000 US dollars. A large haul of birds such as this can make tens of thousands of dollars to be the people involved. Birds are really popular but nobody wants to get their bird silvered like this. You can see this Cockatoo’s head while it is alive in the water bottle. The cap is off not because they want to be kind but because if the bird dies the nit’s not worth any money.

It’s estimated that over 40% of the birds on the black market die during transportation to different countries. That’s because of the very poor conditions the birds are forced to suffer in because there’s no easy way to hide them. Countries have strict laws about what animals are allowed to cross borders for several reasons. They can dramatically change a habitat. You might remember when rabbits were introduced to Australia. Now there are rabbits everywhere.

Here is one of the poor Cockies eyes looking out through the hole. That’s the only hole it has to breathe fresh air out of. many people buy this type of bird because you can teach them how to speak. if only these guys could speak now and tell us who put them in this position.

Here you can see the group of workers who found the shocking bird discovery. Sadly, the birds are not immediately released out of the bottles before they get the media shots with cameras. These aren’t just any birds either, the Yellow-crested cockatoo is listed as a critically endangered species.

Here is another angle of the same group of birds stuck in the bottles. All up there were 24 critically endangered cockatoos rescued by police during this find. The customs location is Tanjung Perak in Surabaya, Indonesia where these birds were found.

Just another day at work for the good guys who did a great job to stopping this from happening. It’s not a guarantee that people won’t try it again, but if you do manage to do a bust it’s always a good idea to let the media cover that so people can see. That way it reduces the chances of them getting away with it again because they won’t try it as often.