Microwaved Hamster Suffers Unimaginable Pain [UPDATED]

9Jan/1014

Microwaved Hamster Suffers Unimaginable Pain [UPDATED]

Pictured hamster may not be suffering 'unimaginable pain'

From the UK's Telegraph comes the story of a hamster that was ~~allegedly~~ microwaved by a teenager.

[The RSPCA spokeswoman] said a woman called the RSPCA* claiming a friend's son had microwaved the hamster, and was advised to take it to a vet.

But the spokesman said it is believed it was at least 26 hours before the animal was taken for treatment.

When examined, she said the vet noticed the hamster did not run around its cage and was very quiet and subdued.

The animal received horrible burns to one of its legs. She continues:

"There were no other external injuries and the vet presumed there would be organ damage and due to the extensive damage of the leg and change in behaviour and likely extensive organ damage she decided to put the hamster to sleep to prevent it suffering any further."

She said the vet concluded the act of heating the hamster in a microwave would have caused it "extreme" pain and discomfort.

"It is an absolutely awful case, a very severe case of deliberately causing suffering," she said.

"It's difficult to imagine why somebody would do that to an animal and the hamster would have suffered unimaginable pain."

Now, what this kid did was sick and repulsive, and he deserves some sort of punishment, preferably from his parents. But a court date, and a full story in a national newspaper? I dunno.

What's supposed to be the lesson here? If you microwave a hamster, make sure you cook it all the way through? Whatever you do, don't call the RSPCA? Lie to your veterinarian?

Victims of 'honor killings' get about as much column space.

* Royal Society for the Prevention of Culinary Atrocities.

UPDATE: One of the more astonishing things about this article is the RSPCA spokeswoman's focus on the 26 hours. The memory of that agony died with the animal, yet it lives on. Do we have as much compassion for the agony of people?

Here's an article on the responsiveness of American medicine.

Dan Collins

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serr8d
January 9th, 2010 - 08:37

Huh.

Ever tossed an alka-seltzer to a seagull?

Me either. But it’s described as something bored kids will do.

Probably this youngster would’ve grown up to be a soccer hoodlum or one of these wicked ‘yobs‘. Maybe this instance will straighten him out.

(Oh, a hamster? Who cares, btw? It’s a simple first-order consumer what’s only purpose is to feed the next levels. That’s why they reproduce so cheaply. )

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Tom Usher
January 9th, 2010 - 10:03

I suppose that it would have been OK if before the hamster was completely born that same child would have simply sucked its brains out of its head?

Hell, they might have even given him a medical degree.

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- Honky White
  January 9th, 2010 - 16:35
  
  Suppose you fuck yourself and abort, you twittering Dobson freak.
  
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Bob Reed
January 9th, 2010 - 11:25

That’s one sick person, to do something so cruel to a defensless living animal. Someone should put a few ounces of ground beef in and “warm it up” on the same settings used.

After showing the effects, the parents should ask the kid what they think it would be like to be cooked from the inside out…

And what I have to wonder is the effects that the microwave radiation had on the rodent’s brain. Admittedly their thought processes are not complex, but it had to have short-crcuited the processes.

Not deserving of national exposure, save for the sometimes prurient interests of the British press on a “slow boobs or nip-slips” day, but still…

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Joe
January 9th, 2010 - 13:35

I know when I was a boy, some kids often caught fire flies and smeared them on their arms to get the glow juice on them, burned ants with magnifying glasses, made carpenter ants fight, etc. Not that they were obsessed with it, but it was rather common place. I myself sent many a worm to his death on the end of a hook, where I caught fish, wacked them on the head and ate them.* I cannot get that emotionally attached to a bug, insect or worm.

As a teenager I saw kids feed their oscars and pirranahs live mice and other kids feed their snakes live mice. That is cruel too. At the time, I must admit I watched. Now I would definitely tell the kids to stop. But call the cops? Probably not.

But it take a certain level of depravity to put a live hamster in a microwave. Juvenile court is a place for that to be addressed. Kids with a pattern of abusing animals often grow up to adults who abuse people. It is a very clear pattern. So why I generally don’t like government getting involved in things, this is often not an issue that the parents can handle (and sometimes they are the ultimate cause of it through abuse and neglect on their part).

* I never caught a fish that looked even remotely like this. Apparently in the Netherlands they have a problem with this?.

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- serr8d
  January 9th, 2010 - 17:51
  
  Joe, how can feeding mice to snakes be considered “cruel”? Starving the snake would be cruel. Predators stay alive only by killing and consuming first order consumers (those things that eat plants, those chemical factories that exist to convert energy from the sun to usable sugars; predators can’t do that without the intermediate step represented by the grass-eaters).
  
  I think the kid should be forced to eat the hamster. You cook it, you eat it. No wasted sugars or proteins whatsoever.
  
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  - Joe
    January 9th, 2010 - 23:49
    
    It is not so much cruel as unsporting. A snake in the wild (these were big pine snakes) has to ambuse a mouse. The mouse has a chance. A snake in a small cage with a live mouse is absolutely going to get the mouse.
    
    I do not think it would be a good idea to put live goats or deer in a tiger zoo exhibit either. I am sure that some visitors would like it, but that does not make it right.
    
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  - Joe
    January 9th, 2010 - 23:59
    
    And obviously starving a snake or fish would be cruel. You don’t necessarily have to feed them live mice.
    
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  - Joe
    January 10th, 2010 - 00:03
    
    And if the kid killed the hamster to eat it–I would say bon appetite. A hamster is just a very small ground rabbit. But when you kill an animal for food you should not torture it, but show it some respect and be quick in putting it down.
    
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Gordon Gecko
January 9th, 2010 - 13:42

Tom Usher, that’s the one thing you have to remember about WASPs: they love animals and hate people.

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Mike Wilson
January 9th, 2010 - 14:18

The myth that child abuse is linked to animal abuse has been debunked in the UK. See: Echoes of the Satanic panic by Heather Piper at

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/3894/

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- Joe
  January 9th, 2010 - 23:57
  
  Mike, I have no idea what that story is about (was it false allegations of satism or the state allegedly persecuting satanists), but the issue I was raising is when children are found engaged in overtly cruel behavior to animals, that is often a precursor to later violence when the child is older.
  
  I am not talking about a kid on the farm who has to kill or clean a few chickens for dinner. Or a dad and his son going deer hunting. I am talking cruelty for cruelty’s sake. It is absolutely a warning sign of potential problems and no that has not be debunked.
  
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  - Mike Wilson
    January 10th, 2010 - 11:12
    
    It was drawing a parallel between the Satanic Panic and the so called ‘links’ theory.
    
    You really should read the article because it debunks the claims that childhood cruelty to animals is a general precurser to later violence.
    
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Joel
May 26th, 2010 - 16:14

I know exactly what happens to cells in a microwave and am completely grossed out by this. But I know a lot off kids that understand nothing about science and wouldn’t get that it would be bad at all. I know an adult that did that as a little kid. He thought it would dry it off after he gave it a bath.

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