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Dead koalas have been mysteriously dumped in cardboard boxes and left to rot by the side of the road until the gruesome find was discovered by a passing local resident.
Duane, 77, found the air-blown corpse of a dead male koala next to another, even more decomposed, stashed in a box near a wind farm on rural Thistle Road in Portland, Victoria, on Thursday.
This latest discovery comes just days after Helen Oakley found a third dead male koala 100 meters away on Tuesday, which has since disappeared.
Authorities have now removed the other two animals, but are still looking for the person who left them there and why the beloved marsupials died.
Members of the Conservation Regulator, which is affiliated with the Department of Environment (DEECA), are now investigating the matter.
Duane, 77, found a dead male koala on the side of a dirt road and another in a cardboard box at a wind farm on Thistle Road in Portland, Victoria, on Thursday.
This latest discovery comes just days after Helen Oakley discovered on Tuesday that another dead male koala was found 100 meters away, which has since been removed
Duane, who suffers from cancer and walks around the area every day to cope with the pain, almost cried when he realized what he had found.
'I thought, 'Oh Christ,' when I first saw the first one… I love animals. “After I found the koalas, I stood there and thought I could cry,” he says told Yahoo.
Ms Oakes, a koala advocate, returned to the area on Thursday to inspect Duane's latest discovery and said the smell was terrible.
'The smell was disgusting. “When I got home I could still smell the stench from my clothes, so I had to take them off and wash them right away,” she said.
The area is close to an aluminum smelter whose management, Alcoa, reported findings to a regulator in accordance with the requirements of the Wildlife Act.
There is no evidence that the koalas' deaths were in any way related to the smelter.
But authorities are appealing to the public to help them find out what is killing koalas in the area.
Leader of rescue group Blessings of the Bush Koala Shelter, Janet Murray, said the placement of the bodies made the scene so suspicious.
Despite many trees on Thistle Road, the bodies were left out in the open, which Ms Murray said could mean more will be found.
Ms Oakes, a koala advocate, returned to the area on Thursday to inspect Duane's latest discovery and said the smell was terrible.
The area is close to an aluminum shelter whose management, Alcoa, reported findings to a regulator in accordance with the requirements of the Wildlife Act.