This is the moment a cruel woman scalds a mother goose and her unhatched eggs with a kettle of boiling water after she claimed the birds kept her up at night.
The shocking CCTV images were filmed on a farm in the city of Yuanlin in Taiwan’s western county of Changhua, with goose farmer Ms Lin losing 33 eggs to the neighbour and her son.
Video Credit: AsiaWire
Footage shows some of the five occasions Chang Chen-mei, 74, trespassed on the farm between December 2018 and March this year, with her son Chang Tzu-hsi, 54, accompanying her during one of the intrusions.
The elderly woman can be seen driving one mother geese out of its nest by dousing boiling-hot water on it. The animal then cries in distress as the neighbour pours the contents of her kettle onto the batch of eggs it was incubating.
According to the Changhua District Court, which sentenced Chang and her son this week, the neighbour broke one egg on her first visit and eight eggs on each of her subsequent four intrusions on Ms Lin’s farm.
All of the unhatched gosling embryos were killed after their shells burst due to the hot water, court findings showed.
Ms Lin, who has two geese and one gander on the farm, reported the case to the police in April and supplied security camera footage as evidence.
She told local media at the time: “The sight brings me to tears. My geese are still protecting their remaining eggs. They’re even protecting some of the broken ones.
“How can someone bring themselves to do something like this?’
The neighbour and her son were summoned for questioning and confessed to their actions, Changhua authorities said.
Chang Chen-mei said in an interview at the time: “These geese are right next to my bedroom window. They wake me up every night while I try to sleep. I can’t sleep.
“I’m not trying to be difficult. I’ve lived here for nearly 60 years, and I’ve never had an argument with anyone!”
Changhua District Court found the mother and son guilty of destruction of private property, and sentenced them to 26 days and eight days of prison time respectively.
Should they decide not to appeal the verdict, they will be allowed to pay a monetary fine of 1,000 TWD (25 GBP) per day – or 34,000 TWD (875 GBP) in total – instead of serving actual time.
Chang Chen-mei told local media she would “just pay the fine and get it over with”.
It is unclear how much in damages she and her son will pay Ms Lin.
The punishment, however, will not end there.
Tung Meng-chih, director of the Changhua Animal Disease Control Center, said the office would punish the mother and son for breaches of Taiwan’s Animal Protection Act.
They face an additional fine of between 15,000 and 75,000 TWD (385 and 1,930 GBP).
To find out more about the author, editor or agency that supplied this story – please click below.
Story By: John Feng, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Asia Wire Report
The Ananova page is created by and dedicated to professional, independent freelance journalists. It is a place for us to showcase our work. When our news is sold to our media partners, we will include the link here.
