A bag that was full of dead tiny birds, which were passed off as pet food, was confiscated by Customs agents at a Virginia Airport.

On January 27, 2020, the US Customs and Border Protection said the package came into Dulles International Airport on a flight from Beijing on January 27, 2020.

US Authorities discovered the bag full of dead birds in the baggage of a passenger that was on their way to Maryland.

The passenger said the package was cat food.

The plastic packaging of the dried dead birds had pictures of a cat and dog.

Casey Durst, the director of field operations for CBP in Baltimore, released a statement about the confiscation, where they said, “These dead birds are prohibited from importation to the United States as unprocessed birds pose a potentially significant disease threat to our nation’s poultry industries and more alarmingly to our citizens as potential vectors of avian influenza.”

The birds are barred from importation to prevent the spreading of the avian flu.

The US Customs and Border Protection says their agents seize nearly 5,000 prohibited animal, meat, and plant byproduct at the US border on an average day in 2019.

Those products also include soil and insects.