10 chickens killed at Jingili Primary School
Young hearts have been left shattered after a senseless crime where a Top End school’s pet chickens were killed. But the community have rallied together after the tragedy.
Northern Territory
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Heartbroken teachers and students at Jingili Primary School have shared their anger over the horrific deaths of 10 of the school’s pet chickens.
Speaking through tears to media on Monday, teachers Jodie Rose and Jodie Peters said they were horrified to be alerted to the situation on Sunday.
“We came as soon as we could and it wasn’t a nice sight to see,” Ms Peters said.
“It was pretty sickening to be honest, that's the only feeling I can use.”
NT Police are investigating the incident in which it is alleged an unknown number of people broke into the school grounds and cut through the chicken pen to access the birds.
“There were a lot of dead birds in the pen in every area and every direction,” Ms Rose said.
“There were tears and sickness and sadness.”
The chickens were a central feature of the school’s kitchen garden program, which has been running for 12 years, and many had hatched and been raised by the students themselves.
Just seven chickens survived the incident.
It’s not the first time an incident of this nature has happened but Ms Rose said it was the scale of death and violence that made it so heinous.
“This was an act of violence against the chickens — they entered with intent to kill.”
The staff said it was a relief the incident didn’t unfold on a school day for the kids to witness.
Principal Jemma Rust said the clean up was “traumatic” but there had since been a positive side to the tragedy.
“The response from the community has been overwhelming,” she said.
“We’ve had support to help with the maintenance of our children pens, we’ve had money donations, it’s just been really amazing.”
The empty chook pen has been decorated with tributes from the students with their fondest memories and messages, from “thanks for the eggs” to “I watched you hatch”.
Year 6 student Matthew said the situation made him and his classmates, who enjoyed working with the pets, both sad and scared.
“It makes most of us feel unsafe knowing that someone broke into our school,” he said.
“It’s not nice knowing that we had all these chickens helping out with our program and now they’re not going to be able to.”
NT Police is urging anyone with information relating to the incident is urged to contact police on 131 444 and quote reference number 10266171
Ms Peters said they were perplexed by what happened but hoped they could use the situation to teach the children some important values.
“I don’t think any of us really understand why (it happened) but I think we can talk about why its so important that we learn how to take care and nurture and respect for wildlife,” she said.
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