Teenage students have watched on in disbelief as a policeman's attempts to euthanase an injured kangaroo in northern NSW went horribly wrong.
The officer needed three shots over about 60 seconds to finally kill the marsupial after it was struck by a car in Armidale on Sunday afternoon.
A nearby group of teenage boys filmed the entire episode and the footage quickly found its way onto YouTube.
The video, which has since been pulled from the video-sharing site, shows the officer draw his gun and walk up to the kangaroo — which had broken its leg — and fire off a shot from a few metres away.
The officer follows the kangaroo as it stumbles away before shooting it a second time — but the animal struggles on and manages to stagger across the road.
Finally, the officer fires a third and fatal shot as the kangaroo slumps against a fence.
The teenagers are heard expressing their shock as the incident unfolds, with one initially saying: "they won't do it with all of us here".
Later another says: "What, are you kidding? Did he miss from there?"
The officer was called in by the NSW Wildlife Information Rescue and Education Service (WIRES) to destroy the kangaroo after it was deemed inhumane to leave the animal alive.
WIRES spokeswoman Jilea Carney said it was regrettable the kangaroo was not killed with one shot but the officer was not to blame.
"Police know they're required as far as possible to euthanise the animal with a clean head shot," she said.
"Of course [the video] was disturbing to look at, but … the police acted as well as they could have."
Ms Carney said there was no way the kangaroo could have survived, even if surgery were possible.
"A kangaroo with a broken leg cannot be rehabilitated," she said.
Front page
RSS Feed