The SPCA is investigating an incident in which a live cat appears to have been thrown from a moving vehicle in Christchurch.
A video shows a group of young people in the a when one of them holds the cat out the window and then throws it from the vehicle, The New Zealand Herald reports.
The person with the cat asked the camera operator to “face the camera on me” before he tossed the cat out.
An SPCA spokesperson told the Herald it had received a complaint about the incident and an investigation was under way.
"The video is a distressing watch,” the spokesperson told the Herald.
"Throwing an animal from a moving vehicle would almost certainly constitute an act of ill-treatment pursuant to the Animal Welfare Act 1999.”
Police had no record of a complaint about the incident, the Herald reported.
It is not known if the cat was injured or retrieved.
But the SPCA said it was not the first time an incident like it has been reported this year.
A Christchurch man who failed to secure his dog as it rode on the open deck of his Nissan Navara was ordered to pay nearly $2000 last month after he was successfully prosecuted by the SPCA.
