Status fails to protect birds

By ANNE BESTON

Not even New Zealand's most valuable native birds could escape becoming part of a string of animal cruelty cases over the past month.

A breeding pair of rare black stilts, two shore plovers and one Campbell Island teal were bashed to death in the early hours of Monday by offenders who broke into a wildlife sanctuary just outside Christchurch.

The incident was described as "tragic" by Department of Conservation native species protection officer, Shaun O'Connor, who said the attack would set back breeding recovery programmes for the birds.

The incident occurred at the Isaac Wildlife Trust near the city zoo which has taken part in captive-breeding programmes for more than 20 years.

"I guess the tragic thing for us is that those species all belong at the top of the critically endangered list, you just can't get more endangered than that," Mr O'Connor said.

Staff were devastated by the deaths, he said.

Police are investigating but say they have few leads.

The bird deaths come after the shooting of a dozen nationally protected native wood pigeons, or kereru, in Upper Hutt last month and a case of animal cruelty brought against three Gisborne women who threw sticks at a dying leopard seal. The leopard seal was found dead the next day.

DoC opted not to prosecute the young women, who had been "embarrassed" by publicity over the incident.

That has angered SPCA national president Peter Blomkamp, who said his organisation had been appalled by the spate of animal-abuse cases.

Two days ago 14 newborn lambs were found bludgeoned to death near Queenstown and the farmer was forced to destroy five more that the offender failed to finish off.

Farmer Chris Dagg called the crime "disgusting".

"Someone's not very well," he said. "It's just the pointlessness of it, it's just a senseless and callous act."

In another recent case, near Wanganui, a 42-year-old sickness beneficiary was sentenced to 150 hours of community work for beating a horse to death.

Mr Blomkamp said he was angry and frustrated that maximum sentences for such crimes under the Animal Act were being ignored.

He said it was "unbelievable" that the three young Gisborne women were not prosecuted. They could have faced six months in prison.

"We just want the sentence laid down under the act applied. What the hell does anyone have to do to get the maximum sentence?" he said.

The issue was raised at a recent animal workshop held at Auckland University where a number of lawyers expressed frustration at light sentences for animal cruelty.

Auckland barrister David Jones said the 1999 act required judges to take into account certain mandatory factors when passing sentence. Section 8 called for the mandatory maximum penalty if the offending was the most serious of its type in that category.

"If the animal is killed from the neglect or cruelty, what could be more serious?" he said.

Prosecutions were the only way to bring it home to people what would happen when these types of crimes were committed.

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