Dozens of birds in New Zealand have been found dead or injured with Christmas decorations tied around them, prompting calls for anyone with information on who is behind the cruel attacks to come forward.

The Royal New Zealand Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) said a number of sparrows and pigeons have been reported with “decorative trinkets” tied to them in the capital, Wellington.

Some of the animals died of starvation as they were unable to fly and find food, the SPCA said. The charity noted that while there had been similar incidents in the past, there has been a spike in sightings in recent weeks.

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“Those that do survive and arrive at our centre are always in a very bad state, and are so malnourished and distressed that we have had to humanely euthanise them,” the SPCA’s spokesperson Paige Janssen told the BBC.

Janssen said there had been several reported cases of “decorated” birds since 2015 but the number of sightings had increased over the Christmas and New Year period.

“We received around 30 calls alone just over this period. They were multiple sightings of a dozen birds that are still mobile and flying around the Kilbirnie area that we are unable to reach,” she said.

On Wednesday a property was searched in an attempt to find the so-called Wellington sparrow killer and the local SPCA said it was looking for the suspect behind this “case of cruelty”. Last week it put out an appeal for information.

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The SPCA general manager for the central region, Ros Alsford, told the New Zealand Herald that decorated pigeons were removed from the property on Wednesday, and brought to its hospital where they were given a check and had the trinkets removed.

She said the birds were incredibly distressed when first brought in but were fine now. “They were in OK health, the vets gave them a good health check. And once we removed the trinkets we sent them back to the property … The reason we did that is they were sitting on nests of eggs so we had to return them back to their nests.”