Man pleads guilty to feeding beloved chicken named Betty White to gators

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NEW SOUTH WALES, Australia (WJW) — A beloved chicken recently met her end after being thrown into a pond with alligators at an Australian animal park.

Visitors at Oakvale Farm and Fauna World at Salt Ash in New South Wales were in for an unpleasant sight in January after a man plucked a Chinese silkie bantam chicken named Betty White from her habitat and took her to the gator enclosure for an impromptu feeding.

The suspect, Peter Smith, pleaded guilty to a count of aggravated animal cruelty earlier this week, according to the Australian Associated Press .

“This is the first time in our 43 years that we have had a member of the public [allegedly] engage in such cruelty in what is an animal sanctuary,” Kent Sansom, who owns the park, said in a statement to AAP.

“Betty White was hand-raised at the park and had played a crucial role in our endangered species breeding program for the bush stone curlew and other species by providing surrogacy to the chicks,” he said. “Her quiet nature means she would not hesitate to approach a customer for some animal pellets, making her an easy target for [an alleged] ruthless perpetrator.”

The maximum penalty for the charge is two years of jail time and a fine of a little over $24,000. Smith is scheduled for sentencing Nov. 20, according to AAP.

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