PORT ELIZABETH - PARK DRIVE MAN ALLEGEDLY CAUGHT ON VIDEO KILLING PEACOCK WITH A SPADE

Police have served a subpoena on Port Elizabeth resident Philip Oosthuizen in connection with an incident on October 8 in which he was filmed allegedly killing a peacock with a spade.

Police spokesperson Colonel Priscilla Naidu said on Wednesday that the matter was set to go to court in January.

“A subpoena has been served on Phillip John Oosthuizen to appear in court on January 22.

“He was charged  in terms of  Contravention of the Animal Protection Act and Contravention of the Nature Conservation Act.”

The case was investigated and referred to the National Prosecuting Authority which had now decided to prosecute.

The incident took place in the grounds of the upmarket Fernkloof block of flats in Park Drive and was filmed by a building contractor on his cellphone.

Oosthuizen maintained afterwards that he had acted humanely by ending the suffering of the peacock, which  was already injured. 

The contractor was part of a group that included Fernkloof trustees who were in Newton Avenue between Fernkloof and St George’s Hospital discussing the construction of a perimeter wall.

According to the contractor, they heard a noise and when they leant over the fence they found Oosthuizen, in the grounds of Fernkloof, where he was a resident, repeatedly hitting a peacock with a spade.

They remonstrated with him but he ignored them, the contractor said.

The video, which The Herald has seen but decided not to post because of its graphic nature, shows Oosthuizen, 63, clubbing the peacock a number of times with the spade and then placing the sharp edge against the prone bird’s neck and pressing down with his foot, apparently in an effort to decapitate it.

Then he stuffs the carcass into a refuse bag and walks off.

Oosthuizen refused to comment at the time. Attorney Stuart Hodgkinson said later that his client had killed the bird because it was injured and in distress and he had sought to put it out of its misery.

Residents of the Fernkloof alerted Arnold Slabbert of wildlife rescue and rehabilitation group Wildline and he laid a complaint at the Humewood Police Station.

The incident sparked an outcry from Nelson Mandela Bay animal lovers and also a protest from the Hindu community, which considers the peacock to be a sacred bird.

via - HERALDLIVE