Upon reaching adulthood, every generation seesms to shake their head at how kids are being raised.   I admit that I’ve been put off by what I’ve seen of modern parenting, where children rarely see their two full time working parents, never seem to play outdoors, watch television constantly, dress like prostitutes and sit like zombies in the back of minivans that are equiped with LCD screens to pacify them with Spongebob videos.

Yet, even given this, a recent news story shocked me.   This is without doubt the worst behaved kid I have ever heard of in my life, and he’s only seven years old.

From the Associated Press:

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) — A 7-year-old boy broke into a popular Outback zoo, fed a string of animals to the resident crocodile and bashed several lizards to death with a rock, the zoo’s director said Friday.

The 30-minute rampage, caught on the zoo’s security camera, happened early Wednesday after the boy jumped a security fence at the Alice Springs Reptile Center in central Australia, said zoo director Rex Neindorf.

The child then went on a killing spree, bashing three lizards to death with a rock, including the zoo’s beloved, 20-year-old goanna, which he then fed to “Terry,” an 11-foot, 440-pound saltwater crocodile, said Neindorf.

The boy also fed several live animals to Terry by throwing them over the two fences surrounding the crocodile’s enclosure, at one point climbing over the outer fence to get closer to the giant reptile.

In the footage, the boy’s face remains largely blank, Neindorf said, adding: “It was like he was playing a game.”

By the time he was done, 13 animals worth around $5,500 had been killed, including a turtle, bearded dragons and thorny devil lizards, Neindorf said. Although none were considered rare, some are difficult to replace, he said.

“We’re horrified that anyone can do this and saddened by the age of the child,” Neindorf said.

Alice Springs police said they are unable to press charges against the boy because of his age. Children under age 10 can’t be charged with criminal offenses in the Northern Territory. His name was not released because of his age.

Neindorf said he plans to sue the boy’s parents.

The boy’s small size is probably the reason he didn’t trip the zoo’s security system, which relies on sensors to detect intruders, Neindorf said.

“I just want people to learn that they can’t let their children go and run amok,” Neindorf said. “If we can’t put the blame onto the child, then someone has to accept the responsibility.”

It would be funny if this were not real.  Actually, it strikes me as just heartbreaking.  Not that I’m especially sad about the deaths of the animals for their own sake, but the fact that a child that young would be so violent, so meanspirted and so out of control as to want to do such a thing.   Getting jollies off of killing and injuring animals is often a sign of some very deep emotional problems and has been noted in serial killers.  one can only imagine what must be going on in this child’s mind.

Though I’ve never been there, the Alice Springs Reptile Center is, by all accounts, an educational, child-friendly and informative place where children and adults can experience the diversity of nature and see the unique life forms native to Australia.   It’s really mind boggling that a child would have the desire to do this in such a location.   I can’t imagine how painful this must be to other children and patrons of the center or to the employees who work to care for these animals and to educate visitors about them.

I suppose it would be easy to blame the zoo for not having better security measures and enclosures for the animals.   There mayb be some merit to that, but before going down that road lets not forget that the real guilty party here is that nasty little kid and the parents who let him go do this for a half hour.   From the report it sounds like the park may have been closed at the time and the kid found his way onto the grounds from outside.   I’m not sure what’s worse:  leaving your kid alone and unsupervised at a reptile park or leaving him to walk around unsupervised so he can go break into one.

The image shown above is from a website by the Australian Northern Teritorial Government’s “Junior Rangers” program.  The image shows children interacting with lizards and reptiles at the center as part of an educational program for young children of the area.   None of them have been reported to have killed the animals they were there to see.

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This entry was posted on Friday, October 3rd, 2008 at 10:16 pm and is filed under Bad Science, Culture, Education, Misc. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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