VIDEO: Colombian Soccer Player Kicks (and Kils) an Owl
South American animals rights groups must have had an interesting weekend.
During a football match (or soccer, for we Americans) between Colombian teams FC Junior and Deportivo Pereira, an owl somehow made its way onto the field. When some tense action reached that end of the field, the owl was unintentionally struck by the ball. When the play slowed down, one of Deportivo Pereira’s players walked over and forcefully removed the bird with his foot.
Whether this act is defined as a harsh scoop or an intentional kick, this still looks a lot like animal abuse. Check out the video and decide for yourself:
The obvious question is why there was an owl on the field, and that’s where this gets much stranger. Junior had reportedly adopted an owl to be their club mascot and would just let it wander around the sidelines during matches. What could possibly go wrong there, right?
Sadly, we’ve learned that the owl has died as a result of the kick. And according to Bogota radio station Santa Fe, “current animal protection laws allow the player to be jailed for ‘one to three months and be fined between 5,000 to 50,000 pesos ($2.6 to $26).’” Twenty-six bucks? That seems, um, arbitrary.
Obviously it’s not the first time animals have been injured in the course of sports. Whenever you have games where a couple dozen athletic men are moving quickly around a field, some unsuspecting creature is bound to end up in the crossfire sooner or later. Here’s one of the most notable examples, involving Randy Johnson hitting a bird with a 95 mph fastball as it flew in front of him.
There’s no way the surly left-hander could do that again if he tried.
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