My lecture was done a little bit early today (2:45 rather than 2:50), so I made my way towards the bus loop to catch the bus to the train station, which is all fine and dandy. I was walking with a friend from my bio class, B, and we were just talking about the film that we watched in class today (it was about evolution and, basically sea worms – it was very cool). B spotted this two kids who were just hitting sticks against something on the ground and we really didn’t think anything of it until we go closer. He pointed it out to me and I said that it was probably nothing since the grass was tall enough that we couldn’t see from maybe 20 metres away. And then we got closer. And closer. And I realized that they were hitting something that looked like just something black that had some sort of give since they were poking at it. And when we got close enough, I got really upset. They were poking at what I thought was the dead body of a crow.

Once we were about three metres away, I realized that the poor thing was still alive. The brats must have caught the bird off guard (they later claimed that the bird was already injured) and just thought it’d be fun to poke at it. It kept on raising it’s head and trying to move, but by the time that B and I got over to the bird and the two kids, neither wing was able to move properly and nor were the bird’s feet. I called for campus security (and asked them to call for the right people to deal with injured wild animals) while B started talking to the kids about respecting wildlife and such.

It was after that I ended my conversation with campus security that the one of the kids started going “Well it’s just a crow, who cares? It wasn’t a cat or a dog or someone’s pet.”

At that, I just became livid and kind of tore into the kids a bit. They were part of a day camp group and their day camp counselor was supposed to stay with the kids until the parents arrived to pick them up at the designated time (and if the parents didn’t arrive, the kids were supposed to be escorted to the administration office for the day camps) but the kids were left alone by the counselor and their parents hadn’t arrived yet. I asked them what if a man decided he didn’t care if they were hurt or not because they were the man’s sons, of course their answer was ‘But we’re human, everyone cares about people.’ These little brats had absolutely no respect for other living creatures at all. Just because it was a crow, they thought it’s life meant less because humans are at the top of the food chain and why should something as simple as a single crow matter when there were so many other crows out there?

Campus security arrived maybe ten minutes later, one of them took care of the kids (took them to the admin office for the day camps) while the other took statements from B and myself. Then the animal control people (I guess they’re called?) arrived. There were two of them and one asked about what happened while the other checked on the bird. After a quick examination, the man told us that the bird would have to be euthanasized (both wings, from what he could tell, had all the bones broken, as well as the bird’s feet were mangled) because even if they could set all the bones and allow the bird to heal, it would never be able to fly or stand or walk normally again after the beating it took from those brats. I overheard one of the kids telling campus security that the bird had “one gimpy wing” when they first found it. So I guess they decided to take it upon themselves to beat it up some more.

It’s just one of those days when I really hate children sometimes.