Alice Spring Reptile Center Killings

Overview

The Alice Springs Reptile Centre Killings were a number of animal that died at hands of a kid the 1st of October in 2008 at the Alice Springs Reptile Centre.

Backgorund

At 1 of October 2008, a 7-year old boy sneaked into the Alice Springs Reptile Centre at night, avoided the security system, jumped over a fence in the zoo and was filmed, without him noticing, by a security camera. ^[1]

Next day, the employees noticed the great loss of animals, and they thinked the reptiles could sneak up and accidentally be eaten by Terry, a saltwater crocodile.

But, when they checked the security cameras, they found a 30-minute massacre in which the expresionless boy killed a large number of animals, such as a turtle, Bearded Dragons, a female goanna and Thorny Devils. Some of them were bashed with a rock to death, or hurled at Terry's enclosure to be eaten alive. The turle was trhown over a Wall and died. ^[2]

The boy was then caught by the police, but he "clammed up" and refused to anwser.

The species lost were difficult to replace. The child couldn't be charged due not being older than 10 years old, but the parents were sued. ^[3]

Notable Developments

The event was reported by many websites, such as ABC ^[1] or the South Florida Sun-Sentinel ^[4]. Many comments on these websites talking about murdering the kid by feeding him to Terry were posted. One list on lisztblog.com was posted with the name "20 Notorious Animal Deaths & Events" ^[5] which included the event as number 13.

Search Interest

Searchs for "Alice Springs Reptile Center" arose quickly on October 2008 due to the murders.

External References

^[1] ABC – Centre wants security boost after reptiles killed

^[2] CBC – Boy, 7, goes on animal killing spree in Australian zoo

^[3] BBC – Boy fed zoo reptiles to crocodile

^[4] South Florida Sun-Sentinel – Australian boy breaks into Outback zoo, bashes lizards, feeds animals to giant crocodile

^[5] Listzblog – 20 Notorious Animal Deaths and Events