What is the difference to the gecko if it didn’t even know anything cruel was being done to it? It was alive one minute, it got really dark and humid the next, and bang, dead the next (if all went as planned and there was no snaggle toothed wretching back and forth.)
The law is supposed to be logical, just trying to uncover the logic here. I looked this up and I understand HOW TO INTERPRET this law (for instance, it doesn’t matter whether the animal experienced the cruelty, only that the act was cruel), but not sure about the logical origin of it. I mean, what if you caught a fish and stood behind its back, did a silly dance, put bunny ears on it while taking pictures, and then killed it and cut it open to a fillet, are you A CRIMINAL? Believe me, I could go on all day with these annoying “What ifs”…
By the way, make no mistake here, I love animals dearly.
I guess the point of such laws, like most laws, is to dissuade other people from doing it. It can also be a way of sniffing out potential human abusers or killers; most serial killers start by killing animals. However, in this particular case I think the punishment is way out of line. The animal wasn’t tortured, it didn’t suffer. Its execution style was similar to what it could expect to experience in the wild. And a gecko is a wild animal, and it’s not endangered. It’s certainly gross, but it’s not something that’s going to undo the foundations of society. Hell, 10,000 years ago this guy just would have been having a little snack. I also fail to see what putting him in jail and giving him a felony charge will do.
Personally I think criminal charges should only be levied against people who kill or abuse owned animals (since pets and livestock are, technically, property) or when the abuse is gross enough that the animal certainly suffered, since that would be evidence of a sick mind at work (although the more appropriate punishment in that case would be counseling). I don’t think this gecko suffered; geckos get their heads bitten off all the time in the wild.
I’d be interested in seeing how the law is written. I’m more sympathetic toward animal rights than probably 99% of the people on this board (although even I am not an adherent to the philosophy), and I don’t see a functional difference between this and someone eating a whole roast chicken on a bet; I see this as significantly less cruel than someone using glue traps to get rid of mice around their property.