KEY POINTS:
Three schoolboys beat and stabbed to death three pet ducks and hanged another in a tree.
The mallard ducks, together with four others that survived, had been raised from ducklings and fed for more than a year by a 16-year-old girl who had adopted them as pets.
When she went to feed them at a pond on grazing land at Kawakawa last week, the girl found the three dead ducks laid over a concrete drainpipe with blood oozing from their wounds.
Bay of Islands SPCA manager Gail Boyd said an electric fence stake had been used to beat and stab the birds, whose injuries she described as "horrendous."
A fourth duck was found some distance away hanging in a tree.
Mrs Boyd said the ducks had broken wings and legs and, according to a veterinary report, had suffered multiple fractures, missing neck tissue and mangled heads and necks.
"Death would have been a blessing to these birds," she said.
The fence stake and a stick used to torture and kill the ducks, together with other evidence later used to identify those responsible, were left at the scene, Mrs Boyd said.
The police have spoken to three 13-year-old schoolboys in relation to the birds' deaths.
Because of the boys' age, they are unlikely to face charges.
But Mrs Boyd said yesterday that she hoped to meet them and their parents to discuss the trio's actions.
"What does it take for kids to inflict this sort of pain and injury to creatures that are unable to defend themselves?" she said.
"We want these kids to be accountable for what they've done.
"If that can make a difference, I'll be happier and we're not just talking about these ducks but the whole, wider animal cruelty picture."
Mrs Boyd says international studies have shown that 85 per cent of young people who commit acts of animal cruelty at an early age go on to commit crimes of violence as adults.
