It’s been a while since we have brought you a truly grim story involving human-animal interactions – save for maybe the one about the girl who flushed her hamster down the toilet at the airport – but this one surely takes the cake. According to CBS, a high school science teacher in Idaho is under investigation after, uh, feeding a dog to a snapping turtle in front of his students.
Sounds normal already. Apparently, Robert Crosland – who has been a teacher at Preston Junior High School for years – did the deed early this month. It is not known whether the dog was alive or dead, or what kind of lesson this was supposed to convey to the kids, If the lesson was ‘a snapping turtle will eat a dog’ then I guess you could just say that and not actually do it.
Superintendent Marc Gee says he became aware of “a regrettable circumstance involving some of the biological specimens,” without specifically elaborating on the nature of the accused offence.
“The event occurred well after students had been dismissed and was not a part of any school-directed program,” Gee said in a news release. “We emphasise that at no time was the safety of students or staff compromised.”
Given that the alleged feeding took place out of school hours, it isn’t known exactly how many students witnessed it go down. It’s believed that he has previously fed guinea pigs to snakes in front of his students, which is still intensely weird but maybe not quite as weird.
Students say that Crosland was a “cool” teacher who often introduced animals like snakes and turtles into class.
“He is a cool teacher who really brought science to life,” a former student says. “I loved his class because he had turtles and snakes and other cool things.”
Going on, Superintendent Gee tried to remind everyone that Crosland was a pretty chill dude up until he fed a dog to a turtle in front of children:
While the district certainly does not condone individual actions that may violate district policy or reasonable expectations of behaviour, we hope that any errors in judgment made by a teacher in this instance will not cause us to forget the years of care, effort and passion the teacher has given to students in Preston School District.
Look in all honesty I’m sure he was a cool guy but this is one of those things which are hard to forget, you know?
