Kyle Thomas Poulsen pleads guilty in Mackay court to animal cruelty over goose kill

The miner’s disgraceful treatment of the goose was posted on social media after a boozy game of golf with mates.

A “perverse” goose killer who ran down the defenceless bird for his own amusement during a boozy game of golf with mates has been slapped with a huge fine.

What happened next was also disturbing – someone else in the group arranged the dead goose on a seat on the golf buggy beside a beer bottle and posted a video on Snapchat.

Kyle Thomas Poulsen, 20, faced up to a $275,700 fine or three years jail after pleading guilty to animal cruelty at Middlemount Golf and Country Club on January 6, 2021.

Kyle Thomas Poulsen ran down a goose during a boozy golf game at Middlemount in January 2021.

“Deliberately driving into a flock of geese and killing one and then the behaviour that followed is more disturbing,” prosecutor Harry Coburn told Mackay Magistrates Court.

Mr Coburn argued the Bowen Basin coal miner was “deriving amusement from the killing of a harmless animal” but conceded Poulsen was not the one who posed the goose or posted the Snapchap video.

“His recollection of the incident was he was driving a golf cart which has been hired by another member of the group,” Macrossan and Amiet associate director and senior solicitor Steven Hayles told the court.

“As they approached a group of about three geese, he maintained his line driving towards the geese, and did not slow down or veer away from his position.”

Macrossan and Amiet associate director and senior solicitor Steven Hayles said his client had secured a good job and had stopped drinking since this offending.

Two of the geese moved out of the way, one did not and was run over, Mr Hayles said, adding Poulsen accepted he could have stopped, slowed down or veered away but “didn’t do any of those things”.

Magistrate Damien Dwyer said he could readily infer there was a “perverse notion of amusement or sport” in his conduct.

Mr Coburn pushed for a sentence that “demonstrates to the community that cruelty to animals is not to be accepted”.

“And that deliberately killing an animal that’s bothering no one for his own amusement is not to be accepted,” Mr Coburn said.

Kyle Thomas Poulsen pleaded guilty in Mackay Magistrates Court to animal cruelty and common assault.

Mackay-born Poulsen also pleaded guilty to common assault over attacking his former girlfriend’s dad amid a bad break-up in November 2020 at Nebo.

Mr Hayles said his client had not been working and was drinking heavily at that time, “up to six cartons of rum and cola each week”.

“Mr Poulsen accepts that he was out of order for resorting to fists first rather than talking about it,” Mr Hayles said.

The court heard he had since found work as a coal miner in March 2021, was a high income earner and had also stopped drinking.

Mr Hayles said until this time his client had “led a blameless life” despite a dysfunctional upbringing.

Mr Dwyer told the court Poulsen’s history was “not bad” and demonstrated “where you’ve run off the rails” following the break up.

Poulsen was fined $3750 and convictions were not recorded.

Originally published as Kyle Thomas Poulsen pleads guilty in Mackay court to animal cruelty over goose kill