A primary school pupil committed animal murder at a petting zoo last week as the shocked manager claims the young boy ‘showed no emotion after the act’.
The nine-year-old committed the violent massacre in Hoek van Holland, a city in the Netherlands, where he killed up to nine rabbits and two guinea pigs, according to local reports.
The boy is said to have visited the petting zoo several times under supervision, but this time he made the trip alone.
Local media reported that the boy walked into the petting zoo late in the afternoon of March 11 and started looking for the rabbits and guinea pigs.
But in a shocking turn of events, the child ended up strangling most of them to death, in an incident whose motives remain a mystery.
A nine-year-old boy committed animal murder last week at a petting zoo in Hoek van Holland, the Netherlands
He is said to have killed nine rabbits and two guinea pigs before police caught him
The petting zoo manager claimed the boy ‘showed no emotion after his act’.
The animal killer was quickly apprehended by the police and the boy’s parents arrived on the scene.
Following the bizarre incident, stunned experts have expressed shock at the boy’s massacre, calling the incident ‘sick’.
Manager Ali Dorenbos of the Rekerhout petting zoo in Alkmaar explains The Telegraph: ‘It makes you completely sick!’
She has previously experienced animal cruelty and recalls: ‘The sheep were shot with bows and arrows, their udders were pulled and the goats had their horns shaken.’
Calves were also beaten blue and chickens and ducks were hanged.
Another expert, Anne-Marie Le Buhan of the Het Geitenweitje Foundation in Laren, was also amazed by the gruesome act.
‘Horrible. How? This is very extreme. And there was no supervision?’ she asked.
The boy will not be prosecuted after the incident in Hoek van Holland because he is younger than twelve years old, but according to reports he will end up in a care program.
“I feel sorry for the animals, but also for the little boy who apparently feels so bad that he has to do this,” says psychiatrist Esther van Fenema.
According to the psychiatrist, animal abuse can be a “worrying sign of behavioral disorder in children” that should be thoroughly investigated.
“If you kill an animal in your home; explain to the child why. Even if it is an insect. So he learns that you don’t wring a guinea pig’s neck, which is harmful,” she added.