Who Killed the Cocky?

A New Guinea white cockatoo which caught the wrong plane came to an unhappy end re cently at the hands of Sydney quarantine officers.

Cocky was from the Eastern Highlands of NG, and his owner, an American missionary, in tended to send him by Qantas air-freight to Los Angeles via Manila and Hongkong to escape all the restrictions of Australian quarantine regulations.

Unhappily, he was shoved on a south-bound plane, arrived in Sydney unaccompanied and without any of the right papers, was pounced on by Customs officials —and kaput.