Stock truck driver fined for throwing goats down unloading ramp

Nine kid goats and two adults were thrown down an unloading ramp onto a hard surface. File photo / Adrian Jozefowicz / Pexels

RNZ

A stock truck driver has been fined more than $3500 for cruelly unloading goats from a vehicle.

Wayne Patterson has been sentenced in the Christchurch District Court on two charges under the Animal Welfare Act.

The Ministry for Primary Industries said he collected the feral goats from a property in Ashburton and drove them to a meat processing plant in Wellington.

CCTV shows the 56-year-old throwing nine kid goats and two adults down an unloading ramp onto a hard surface.

MPI spokesman Murray Pridham said at one point, Patterson dragged a dying adult goat by its legs upside down and threw it down the ramp, landing on two of the kid goats.

He said the animals would have suffered significant distress and pain and there was no excuse for abusive behaviour.

- RNZ