Police were making inquiries into a flat initiation that involved a live eel, Senior Sergeant Anthony Bond, of Dunedin, has confirmed and last week the Otago Daily Times spoke to the mother of a student involved, and to another student who was directly involved, in an initiation where students bit the legs off live ducks.
Police and the university said they were yet to receive direct evidence of that incident, and police urged anyone with information to come forward.
The two first-year students involved in the latest initiation claims said their experience was one they would never "subject a fellow girl to".
When the women arrived at the flat they are renting next year, they were asked by a group of second-year students to strip to their underwear and stand in the centre of a room while about 30 men and women watched.
The second-years circled with marker pens parts of the young women’s bodies deemed to be "fat", and called them "the piggies" throughout the evening.
One of the women said it was not the most creative flat-initiation they had heard of, but it was "really effective" in humiliating them.
"I was surprised when we were told we were going to have an initiation. I don’t think that flat has ever had them in the past.
"I think the second-years just wanted to have a go at an initiation, but the idea isn’t very creative or new. The circling fat thing has been around in the [United States] for ages."
The women said the experience was more degrading than dangerous, and they would not put first-years through similar torment next year.
Student magazine Critic Te Ārohi this week reported on other incidents, including a group of women who were made to chain smoke inside wheelie bins, which then filled with carbon monoxide causing one of them to pass out.
Bede Crestani, the father of Sophia Crestani who died at a flat party in Dunedin four years ago, said to hear about the initiation behaviour was "just gut-wrenching".
They had just marked the fourth anniversary of Sophia’s death last Friday.
"There seems to be this dangerous culture that keeps popping up all the time with these students.
"This shows they are just not mature enough to look after themselves."
Students for Sensible Drug Policy president Max Phillips said the organisation believed the lack of student cohesion and disconnect within the community had allowed this culture to spiral out of control.
"These flat initiations are indeed dangerous, and the pressure put on first-year students to conform is in fact coercion."
University of Otago student services director Claire Gallop said the proctor’s office was working through several inquiries relating to initiation.
"All students must abide by the student code of conduct and anyone found to have breached the code may be in jeopardy of expulsion."
