Society charges KZN teens over hen torture video
In this video grab from YouTube one of the girls tosses the hen, circled. In this video grab from YouTube one of the girls tosses the hen, circled.
Lungi Langa and Lungelo Mkamba
police are investigating a case of animal cruelty after two teenage girls killed a hen by punting and kicking it “like a rugby ball”.
They recorded themselves and posted the video on the internet.
Police captain Thulani Zwane confirmed that its Winterton branch was investigating animal cruelty.
The Ladysmith High School girls have not yet been arrested.
The case was opened by the National Council of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (NSPCA) yesterday.
According to the society’s senior national inspector, Grace de Lange, the video was uploaded to YouTube on July 1, but the society only discovered it last week.
She said: “NSPCA investigations have led to criminal charges against two schoolgirls who posted a video of themselves torturing a hen as they giggled and squealed.”
The video footage depicts the hen trying to fly, but it lands head first after one of the throws.
It is then kicked repeatedly and drop-kicked (rugby-style) and falls to the ground seemingly unconscious, with one of the girls commenting that it seems “drunk”.
The caption of the video says: “Well basically this is what we do at sleepovers at 6am, as you can see with the pyjamas, the chicken did die and please no animal cruelty lectures!!!”
Animal Anti-Cruelty League spokeswoman Heather Cowie said that children needed to be taught at a young age to respect animals, and that education was the only way that the problem of animal cruelty was going to be solved.
Durban clinical psychologist Cathrin Venter said children were desensitised by being exposed to too much violence on TV and in video games.
Referring to a comment made by the girls about not wanting to be lectured about what they had done, she said: “Clearly they knew that what they were doing was wrong but were hoping to get supportive comments from their peers.”
Venter said it seemed the girls also wanted to shock. She said they would probably be given community service with organisations advocating the rights of animals, to teach them how serious the issue of animal cruelty was.