Eight people arrested in Brazil for ‘brutal’ attack on capybara

Rio de Janeiro police said Monday they had arrested eight people for brutally beating a capybara, the world’s largest rodent whose cold-blooded behavior has inspired countless memes online in recent years.

Resembling a giant, gentle guinea pig, the shaggy, light-brown capybara (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris) is often seen wandering around the Brazilian city, especially near streams and lagoons.

In an incident captured on security cameras before dawn on Saturday, a group of attackers beat the capybara with sticks and iron bars in the popular Ilha do Governador neighborhood.

“This is a brutal crime that shocks society,” said Felipe Santoro, the police commissioner in charge of the investigation, quoted by the daily O Globo.

“This is an act of extreme cruelty towards a creature that posed absolutely no threat… but was nevertheless deliberately attacked,” he added.

The attackers, including two minors, were identified using video surveillance images and arrested on Saturday, police said in a press release.

The capybara, a 65-kilogram (143-pound) male, was taken to the Wildlife Care Center (CRAS) at the private Estacio University in southwest Rio.

“We have been caring for Rio’s wildlife here for 22 years and I have never received a capybara subjected to such extreme aggression,” veterinarian and head of CRAS Jeferson Pires told AFP on Monday.

He said the creature was doing better, but was “suffering from head trauma, swelling with internal bleeding around the left eye and multiple injuries to its back.”

In recent years, the semi-aquatic capybara, native to South America, has gained popularity online and its image is increasingly used on toys, clothing and home decor items.

It’s often used in articles about being zen and going with the flow.

A popular meme is “Comrade Capybara” – depicting the animal as a communist revolutionary – inspired by the 2021 “invasion” by capybaras of a luxurious gated estate in Argentina that was built on a wetland that was their natural habitat.

In early January, the death of a stray dog ​​after being beaten to death by teenagers sparked a massive wave of indignation in Brazil, even sparking a reaction from First Lady Rosangela “Janja” da Silva.

lg/fb/jgc