Four teens were arrested this week for allegedly clubbing and killing nearly 1,000 chickens with a golf wedge after breaking into a Foster Farms facility in Northern California.
According to CBS News, the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office arrested 18-year-old Gabriel Quintero of Riverdale, two teens ages 15 and 17 from Caruthers, and a 17-year-old from Lemoore on Wednesday.
Detectives reported in a news release that the incident is believed to have occurred on September 20 before 8:30 a.m. The suspects were traced through media coverage that led to tips and other information being culled from social media websites.
All were charged with burglary and felony cruelty to animals. Quintero was transported to the Fresno County Jail, and the three juveniles were transferred to the Juvenile Justice Center.
The San Jose Mercury News reported that the group are thought to have pulled back a fence to gain access to the chicken coop, where they subsequently teed off on 920 birds using a golf club and other blunt instruments, killing them all.
The 920 chickens had an estimated value of $5,000. Foster Farms and animal rights groups initially publicized the massacre by offering respective rewards of $5,000 for information leading to the perpetrators, but it remains unclear who, if anyone, will receive it in the wake of the arrests.
"It is the express policy of Foster Farms to treat its birds humanely and with compassion," the company said in a statement,
the Los Angeles Times reported.
Similarly, Stephen Wells, executive director of the Animal Legal Defense Fund, said, "This heinous act of animal cruelty must be met with the full force of the law."
It was not clear whether the chickens were egg producers, were intended to be slaughtered for their meat, or both.
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