Bandicoot death sparks outrage

Video prompts call for harsher penalties

WILDLIFE campaigner Greg Irons is calling for harsher penalties for animal cruelty cases after reporting a social media video posted by a Tasmanian man allegedly showing a bandicoot being drowned.

The Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary director labelled the video, which appears to show the native animal trapped in a cage inside a bucket of water, as “absolutely disgusting”.

“It’s not going to be tolerated — it’s just crap,” Mr Irons said.

“I’ll be following this very closely and if it ends in a slap on the wrist I’ll be furious.

“The things we deal with on a daily basis [at Bonorong] — we had three bandicoots come in yesterday. We work so bloody hard to save them and to see this d...head doing that to a perfectly healthy one — it’s just infuriating.”

Bandicoots are a protected species, with the Eastern Barred and Southern Brown found in Tasmania.

The Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment told the Mercury it was investigating the Facebook video and that wildlife enforcement rangers and Tasmania Police had searched a house near Burnie on Thursday in relation to the matter.

DPIPWE head wildlife ranger Luke Bond said a number of items were seized during the search of the property and a man was assisting them with their inquiries.

Mr Bond said the investigation was continuing and no charges had been laid at this stage.

The man who posted the video said the incident was “clearly an accident”.

“I’ve got a rat problem — I thought it was a rat,” he said.

“I did mean to kill a rat, but it was unintentional I killed a bandicoot.”

Mr Irons said potential penalties for cruelty against wildlife included jail time.

“It should be jail time — let’s get a clear message out to people that mistreating wildlife like that is not acceptable,” he said.

“I would hope this is an opportunity for people to say they’ve had enough of this kind of behaviour.”