By Laine Priestley of 
Photo: 123RF
*Originally published on 6 October, 2023.
A horrified mother says a group of first-year University of Otago students were forced to bite off the legs of live ducks as part of a "sick and twisted" Dunedin flat initiation.
Her report comes a day after other students reported witnessing a live eel being dragged out of a metal drum filled with water and held aloft in another "hazing" ritual.
Otago University had tried to crack down on initiations, sending the proctor to flats identified as likely to host events and providing face-to-face information, followed by specific targeted email advice.
However, the warnings have appeared to have been ignored.
A parent of an Otago student said her son's group of friends had been the victims of a particularly vicious flat-initiation.
"They had to catch a live duck and the four boys had to bite a leg off the duck while it was alive.
"This is just really awful, sick and twisted, and it is just getting really out of hand."
The woman's son was unaware of what happened to the ducks after the incident.
An Otago student spoken to this week, said he recently went through his flat initiation held by the second-year students living in the flat he and his friends will occupy next year.
"I'm really unsure of what happened later on.
"I was blacked out by 1pm, but we were asked to each bring two boxes of Ranfurly Draught, a bottle of wine, a bottle of vodka and a pack of ciggies."
When the student arrived he had to immediately start [drinking from] a series of funnels one after another in front of a large audience of older students until the entire box was gone.
"If we vomited, we had to go to the floor, suck it back up and after every funnel we had to say 'thank you' to whatever second year was pouring our funnel."
Throughout the day, the boys were force-fed tobacco bongs and intermittently had their heads shoved in a vomit-filled bucket as "punishment".
He said everything was a bit fuzzy but he had to drink a bottle of wine and was fed vodka shots.
"I can't remember when, but one of my mates had to drink their flat's bong water."
The student did not remember at what point he passed out, but he woke up outside in the dark, his hair freshly buzz-cut and facing a long walk to his hall of residence.
"I don't know how I even left, but I woke up in the [Dunedin] Botanic Garden the next morning."
He said while the experience was thoroughly humiliating, it was part of the "culture".
"I mean, yeah, sure, it was the most humiliating thing I have ever experienced and I will never show others the pictures and videos, but it's all in good fun," he said.
"I would never admit it to the boys, but I did have a cry in my room the next day.
"But it is what it is. It's a rite of passage."
University of Otago director of student services Claire Gallop said the university had undertaken proactive prevention and education work to curb initiation events because of the harm they could cause.
"Unfortunately, this year we are aware of flat initiation events that have been held.
"However, as a result of careful work by the proctor's office, some planned events have been cancelled."
- This story was first published in the Otago Daily Times
