Man sentenced for koala slingshot attack

A man has been ordered to do 150 hours of community service for firing a slingshot at a koala.

James Daniel Healey, 22, from Rostrevor in Adelaide has been convicted on a charge of taking a protected animal.

Magistrate Simon Smart has put Healey under the supervision of a community services officer and ordered him to pay more than $200 in court costs.

Pet store owner fined for illegal import

A Melbourne pet store owner has been fined for illegally importing protected Australian wildlife into Victoria.

Paul Stokes, 35, who runs a store in Glen Waverley, has pleaded guilty to a range of charges, including failing to keep proper records on his wildlife.

Department of Sustainability and Environment officers seized snakes and turtles, some of which were undersized, in a raid last year.

Stokes has been fined $8,000.

The pet store has been banned from trading in protected wildlife for three months.

Dog lick costs leg, toes, fingers

A woman is rebuilding her life from losing all her toes, fingers and a leg after being licked by a dog.

Julie McKenna from Mildura in Victoria was rushed to the Royal Adelaide Hospital last year after her small terrier licked a superficial burn on her left foot.

It sent her into septic shock, weeks later.

While the former nurse says her case is rare, she thinks people need to be careful around dogs and cats, especially where there is broken skin.

"I mean you see dogs licking kids on the face and things like that, I mean it's just one of those million-in-one chances, it's like the bird flu, you know, how did it hop from bird to human?" she said.

"Definitely changed my life, it's changed my life in every aspect, having no fingers and no, well amputated leg and half a foot, it's everything, you have to think twice about how to do things."

Burns specialist Dr John Greenwood says pet owners need to be careful.

"Dog bites, dog licks, they're never benign, they're always potentially horrendously infective."

Cat clubbed: man avoids jail

A man who bashed a neighbour's cat with a golf club has been fined almost $3,000 but spared a jail term.

Michael Farrell, from Adelaide's northern suburbs, pleaded guilty in Elizabeth Magistrates Court to attacking the cat in his shed.

The animal was left with a fractured skull and severe internal injuries.

It crawled home but later died.

Farrell was sentenced to six weeks' jail but it was suspended in favour of a 18-month good behaviour bond.

Aussie jailed for satanic goat sacrifice

A man has been jailed for stealing a pet goat and killing it during a satanic ritual on a church altar.

Scott Peter Romano, 28, of the Brisbane suburb of Runcorn, will spend the next four months behind bars for what Brisbane District Court Judge Kerry O'Brien today described as a "completely senseless" act.

The court was told the offence took place on Friday, October 13, 2006, after Romano and a group of friends had been drinking heavily at a party in Bellbowrie, in Brisbane's west.

Prosecutor Jacob Robson said the group drove to a nearby property and abducted a goat, which they loaded into the boot of a car and took to the Bellbowrie Community Church.

The court was told the group broke into the church and led the goat - which had been bought as a pet for a 15-year-old girl - to the altar, where they slit its throat in a satanic ritual.

The court was told Romano then decapitated the goat, later telling police it was because he could no longer bear to watch it suffer.

The group took the head and drove to a nearby convenience store to buy a disposable camera, which they used to take photos of themselves performing lewd acts with the head.

Police later found the camera at co-offender Tracey Lee Arnold's home, as well as the head which had been stored in her kitchen freezer.

Arnold was sentenced to two years probation last year for her role in the offence.

Romano today also pleaded guilty to one count each of stealing stock, breaking and entering premises, and injuring an animal.

Defence barrister Steve Kissick told the court his client's behaviour was "entirely out of character", and that he had volunteered to buy a new goat for the owner.

Judge O'Brien said the offence warranted actual jail time as Romano was of an age where he "ought to have sufficient maturity and common sense to know that this sort of conduct is unacceptable".

Judge O'Brien sentenced Romano to 12 months jail but fixed an August 10 parole release date.

Man fined over illegal wildlife sales

A 67-year-old Queensland man has been convicted and fined $80,000 for selling protected wildlife.

Grant Arthur Nicholls today pleaded guilty to 21 charges in the Redcliffe Magistrates Court north of Brisbane, relating to the unlicensed selling of more than 600 native snakes, lizards, frogs and birds.

State Minister for Sustainability Andrew McNamara says the Deception Bay man had a permit to keep certain animals, but not to trade them.

Mr McNamara says the investigation also involved customs officers, and wildlife authorities from Victoria, the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales.