Thousands of baby chicks found dead after left on tarmac in Florida heat

MIAMI, Fla. -- An investigation is underway after thousands of baby chickens were found dead inside cardboard boxes at Miami International Airport Tuesday after being left out on the tarmac.

This comes as heat continues to surge in places across the U.S.

The baby chicks were taken off of a plane, put on to the tarmac, and left there for hours on a day when the heat index hit 99 degrees in Florida, WPLG reported.

It turns out, the chicks were part of a shipment heading to the Abaco Big Bird Family Farm in the Bahamas.

They arrived in Miami on a Delta flight that landed at MIA around 1:15 p.m. Tuesday.

The boxes were unloaded from the plane's cargo bin by baggage handlers from Eulen America and placed into metal carts.

They were then supposed to be taken by employees of Alliance Ground International, where they would be stored overnight before being picked up by another shipping company, Wincorp International, to be transported to the Bahamas. But, for some reason, the chicks were never taken off of the tarmac and instead sat there baking in the South Florida sun.

By the time they were noticed, thousands had died.

In fact, the farm said, of the 5,200 chicks that were initially in the shipment only 1,300 made it to them alive.

WPLG contacted Delta, Eulen, and Alliance Ground, trying to figure out why these animals were left out there to suffer. All of them said they are now investigating what went wrong.

The local news station also spoke to the Abaco Big Bird Family Farm, who said in 27 years of business, they've never seen anything like this and they were horrified when they heard what happened.

The station said they also spoke to multiple law enforcement agencies, local, state, and federal to see if anyone is doing a criminal investigation into the incident.

Both Delta and Eulen have said they are investigating the situation. Alliance Ground has not released a statement.