Cruelty hot spots revealed
CENTRAL Gold Coast suburbs are the city’s biggest hot spots for animal cruelty complaints, new RSPCA data shows.
Southport (92 complaints), Labrador (76), Nerang (74) and Biggera Waters (52) featured in the top five places for cruelty calls in 2017.
Northern suburbs Upper Coomera (63), Pimpama (57) and Oxenford (44) made the top 10. The RSPCA received 2370 complaints last year.
The data comes a day after more than three million people
watched a video of a man abusing his pet dog at the Palm Beach Parklands. The dog was seized on Tuesday afternoon and the RSPCA are investigating.
The second dog in the footage did not belong to the man and was in good condition, so was not taken by inspectors.
RSPCA spokesman Michael Beatty said the increasing
number of cruelty complaints was worrying.
“It’s the same suburbs that continue to be the highest,” he said. “I guess that’s a reflection on the socio-economic reality, but you can’t totally put it down to that.”
Mr Beatty said the RSPCA had one inspector that serviced the entire Gold Coast region. Another inspector helped to investigate the northern suburbs.
“It’s a huge amount of complaints to deal with and some of the things they see – it takes a certain type of person.”
Criminologist Terry Goldsworthy said people could lash out at animals in various forms of cruelty for a number of reasons.
“It would be interesting to see what kind of cruelty (has been recorded),” he said. “It could be neglect versus where old mate decides to kick and punch a dog.
“They’re vulnerable victims with no ready help for them. Unless a passerby sees it, they’re at the mercy of their owner.”
Dr Goldsworthy said people who abused animals could be doing so because of revenge, anger issues and could even be sadistic.
“We can see people, especially in their younger years, inflicting pain almost as a test run. Evidence is there that those who commit sadistic crimes (on people) often have a history of non-human (cruelty).”
Dr Goldsworthy said it would be useful to do more research on the link between animal cruelty and future violence against people.