Man charged with biting head off live mouse

Animal cruelty charges have been filed against a 23-year-old Swede who bit the head off a live mouse while one of his friends filmed the episode on a mobile phone camera. “He subjected the mouse to completely unnecessary suffering,” said prosecutor Mats Wihlborg.

The 41-second film sequence was recorded back in April and shows how the 23-year-old resident of the Baltic island of Gotland holds the mouse by its tail. Encouraged by his friends, the man then bites the head off the mouse, spits the head out in his hand, and then lets blood drip from the rodent’s lifeless body. In a final macabre act, the men then stuffs the headless body of the mouse back in his mouth.



“Look, look, the mouse is lying and shaking!” one of the man’s friends can be heard saying in the background. Police stumbled across the film after confiscating the mobile phone in an unrelated matter and were able to identify the 23-year-old, who had come to their attention on a number of previous occasions.

Veterinarian Peter Markstedt reacted to the film sequence in horror. “Animal cruelty of this kind, no, I’ve never seen anything like it before,” he said. The maximum penalty for animal cruelty in Sweden is two years in prison.