A Christmas shopper was left in disbelief after finding around a dozen dead animals dumped in the city centre late at night.

The shopper, who wished to remain anonymous, said he was walking home after spending the evening in the city centre to do some Christmas shopping on Thursday when he was met with the gruesome sight.

He believes the birds, found as he was walking along the pathway on Harbour Parade at the junction with Pirelli Street, to be pheasants.

“I was in disbelief, I thought it was cardboard at first,” he said – as approximately a dozen decapitated pheasants lay in the road.

“It was around 9.30pm and I hadn’t long been out of Westquay and was making my way home.

“I was crossing the road by West Quay Retail Park and these pheasants – that couldn’t have been there long – had been dumped and run over.

“It was shocking to see, I had to doubletake a few times to process it.”

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The shopper said he had to warn a young family walking behind them in order to make sure the children wouldn’t see what was in the road.

“I could see this family walking behind me, and I thought I had to warn them because that’s the last thing you want your children to see – they crossed the road deliberately to move out of the way but I’m sure other people would have seen it and it’s absolutely shocking.

“People don’t just go around dumping stuff like that on the road so you can assume it was done deliberately, particularly when it was dark, although you’d think there would be plenty of CCTV around that area that would be able to pick it up.

“It’s just before Christmas and it makes you wonder if a load of these birds had been caught somewhere and then for whatever reason have been dumped afterwards, the whole thing was just bizarre.”

The Echo contacted Hampshire Constabulary for a comment though a police spokesperson confirmed the incident hadn't been reported.