A truck driver has been fined over $3500 for brutally unloading goats from his truck.
Wayne Patterson, 56, has been convicted by Christchurch Magistrates Court of two offenses under the Animal Welfare Act.
The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) said it had collected the ibexes from a property in Ashburton and transported them to a meat packing plant in Wellington.
CCTV showed the man tossing nine kids and two adult goats off the unloading ramp onto a hard surface.
MPI spokesman Murray Pridham said Patterson dragged a dying adult goat by its legs, hung it upside down and threw it down a ramp, onto two young goats.
He said the animals suffer a lot of pain and trauma and there is no excuse for the cruelty.
