A shower of live and dead bats took place in several districts of the Ukrainian city of Odessa on Monday, local media report.

According to the Timer website, the animals were limp and depressed. Some of them died as they hit the ground. The website quoted a local biologist as saying that the weather could be behind the unusual phenomenon. Cold weather persisted in the region for some time and then changed to a warm spell. The animals broke their hibernation and started to fly, but as it happened very early, they could not manage the flight and started falling.

In February this year, the Ukrainian Parliament passed a law on bat protection. It reads that the state must do everything in its power to protect the bats, which currently face extinction.