Budapest - A tiger python seemingly smuggled into Budapest Zoo by a visitor has killed three rare Kea parrots, zoo spokesman Zoltan Hanga said on Friday. "The inventory value of the damage is 4.5 million forints (23,587 dollars) but the damage to conservation is much more significant," Hanga said in a statement.
Hanga said that the 2-metre-long python was discovered in the birds' cage on Tuesday morning but that it was not yet clear whether somebody had deliberately let it loose in the cage or simply released it in another part of the zoo.
The zoo has several pythons, but Hanga said they were all tagged with microchips and accounted for.
The Kea parrot is native to the mountainous regions of New Zealand's South Island.
Current estimates put the number of birds living in the wild at somewhere between 1,000 and 5,000 and Hanga said that there were only 140 of the birds in captivity worldwide.
The zoo has reported the incident to the police.
