SPORT?:

Rare marsupials kicked to death in 'quokka soccer' (Nick Squires, 12/01/2003, Daily Telegraph)

They are small and round and look like furry footballs - and they are being kicked to death by young Australians for "fun". The quokka, a species of miniature wallaby found only in Western Australia, has become the renewed target of a sadistic "sport" called quokka soccer.

Since last Sunday, eight quokkas have been found dead on the seven mile-long island of Rottnest, apparently kicked or beaten to death.

The animals were found on a cricket oval near Thomson Bay Settlement, one of the few villages on Rottnest, a resort island in the Indian Ocean 12 miles west of Fremantle. Quokka soccer began in the 1990s when day-trippers from the mainland began kicking and killing the animals - a protected species - for fun.

Incidences of quokka killings tailed off and it had been hoped that the cruel craze was over but last November it re-emerged in a variant form: quokka hockey.

You don't have to be a member of PETA to think they should horsewhip anyone they catch doing something this brutal and stupid. Posted by Orrin Judd at January 12, 2003 11:11 PM