RITA MILJO - AN INDOMITABLE SPIRIT

                      The evening of Friday 27^th July 2012 saw the end of an era.  A pioneer and legend in conservation, Rita Miljo was the first person in the world who managed to rehabilitate Chacma baboons and reintroduce them, as troops, into the wild - a feat which was regarded as impossible.  She died in a horrific blaze which destroyed her flat above the clinic, a house and much of the sanctuary she had built in the bush in the Limpopo province. 

            Born in Germany in 1931, Rita fell in love with Africa where she and her husband settled in the 1950's. Tragically, her husband and only child, a daughter, were both killed in a light airplane crash.  

            It was a chance encounter with a baby baboon not long afterwards that changed her life, setting her on a course which was to shake the foundations of Conservation in South Africa, and reverberate around the world. Travelling in South West Africa during the bush wars, she came upon a baby baboon, mascot to a troop of soldiers, who had been left for dead in a dustbin. Rita established that the little baboon was, in fact, only suffering from a massive alcohol overdose. A qualified pilot with her own aircraft, she managed to smuggle him over the border and back to her farm outside Phalaborwa.  And so the Centre for Animal Rehabilitation and Education (CARE) had its beginnings in 1981 with Rita claiming ever afterwards that Bobby( as she had named the little baboon) was actually the founder of the facility.

            Initially dedicated to the care, rehabilitation and protection of injured and orphaned indigenous wild animals, CARE soon specialized in the care of Chacma baboons, actively pursuing their rescue, rehabilitation and release.  It was the only facility in Southern Africa that accepted orphaned or abandoned baboons and offered them long-term care.

            They kept coming in – orphaned babies whose mothers had been shot by farmers, traumatized laboratory baboons whose release had been negotiated - the unwanted, the maimed.

Where they could be rehabilitated and released in troops, this was done.  Others were to live out the rest of their lives without fear in large outside enclosures.  

            From the start Rita was engaged in virtually a war situation with the singularly hostile Nature Conservation officials who were determined to shut her down, baboons being classified as 'vermin' and therefore to be shot on sight. Who can forget the occasion when the feisty lady stood with a loaded shotgun between her baboons and the officials who had come to confiscate them?  The officials thought better of it and hastily retreated.

            But it was only the start, with Rita being hounded at every turn.  On one notable occasion she rushed to Mpumalanga to save the life of an orphaned baby baboon and bring him back to CARE. She was hauled before the Court where the prosecutor asked her: "Why do you waste your time on problem animals like baboons?"  Rita's reply: ¨Who are you to tell God he should not have created baboons?" had the magistrate struggling to hide a smile.  She was acquitted from the charges of moving the baby baboon without the necessary permits as she 'had acted out of necessity."

            In time the officials learned to respect (even admire) her, but the next obstacle that was thrown into CARE's path was the "destruction of original genes" dogma – it was alright to kill baboons in any way possible but if one wanted to put a Free State Baboon in touch with a Transvaal baboon, one committed the ultimate Armageddon – the destruction of their gene pool, their being considered different sub-species.

Ow convenient,How

"How convenient that God knew there would be four or nine provinces in South Africa," retorted Rita.

A task team of young American students was assembled by Pretoria University to go into this gene research. Rita invited some of their members to C.A.R.E. She asked the students: "Where do you obtain your blood samples to be absolutely sure that you have the right blood source for your studies?" She was informed that they just asked the guys from Nature Conversation and got sent a bag full of baboon ears.  Rita was met by a flood of emotions and tears when she offered them a knife and told them to go and cut off as many ears as they needed from her baby orphans.  "I have no idea where this particular study ended," Rita wryly informed me.

But she did afterwards travel to Pretoria to have a word with Professor Peter Henzi, the then leading primatologist in South Africa. Not long after, the taxonomy of the Chacma baboon was changed and all baboon "separate" species, from the Chacma in the South through to the North African Hamadryas baboon now became sub-species.

There were lows, such as when she was called to the hastily abandoned secret French

Laboratory in the bush at Hazyview.  A dying baboon quietly handed over her baby while looking  straight into Rita's eyes as if imploring her: "Please look after my baby."  This affected Rita so much that she had to seek medical assistance. But the remaining baboons were later relocated to CARE and a proud moment was when Madiba himself attended their eventual release back into the bush.

            From 2010, when the telephone lines would permit, I had several long distance exchanges with Rita, in connection with a book I wanted to write.  During our last conversation  she described how she had partitioned off half of her lounge for her beloved Bobby. Now both old, they would share many Woolworths ready-meals, which Bobby loved. Was it prescience or Rita's famed black humour when she concluded:  "And so we sit, two oldies staring at each other as if wondering which one of us will be the first to go."

            And then the shocking news that she and Bobby had succumbed together in the horrific  blaze, the cause of which is still under investigation.

            I am reminded of Rita's words to me: "How many millions of creatures, animals and humans, never have much else in their lives – just an existence. The human species have created illusions for themselves, they call it HOPE. And if there is nothing to hope for in this world – there will be happiness in the next.  Mr. Dawkins calls this the God Delusion.  I wonder whether animals also have their own delusions called Hope or does their happiness consist of the presence of the moment only?"

            Hamba Kahle, dear friend. 

 

 

Beatrice Wiltshire

NIKKI BOTHA - A ROAD LESS TRAVELLED

                                

The Faroe Islands, a self governing region of Denmark situated N­­­­orthwest of Scotland and halfway be­tween Iceland and Nor­­way, has been described by the National Geographic as 'unspoilt, a delight to the traveller.' The islands earned high marks for  preservation of nature, historic architecture and local pride.

            But this deceptively peaceful destination has an ugly side.  For a thousand years there would be the annual 'grind' during which a flotilla of small boats drives whales or dolphins into a shallow bay where they can be easily killed with knives. This archaic tradition was also practiced by other cultures in the Arctic and Europe, but these have either stopped or changed their techniques considerably.

            Recently, South Africa woke up to the news that six animal activists had been arrested at the Faroe islands on charges of hindering the hunt of the pilot whales and not following police orders when being asked to leave the water.

            Two of those arrested were South Africans and Bolander interviewed one of them, Nikki Botha.

            So who is this dedicated animal activist and what made her follow this journey?

            According to Nikki she had a pretty unstable childhood, being placed in boarding school from an early age, first in Touwsrivier and then at the Bloemhof Girls' High in Stellenbosch.  

She became aware of the cruel fate of animals from her activist mother and after leaving school and relocating to Cape Town, she became a vegetarian, moving on to veganism after 18 years.

            But what really started her off on her 'animal' journey was when in 2006 a friend introduced her to Captain Alex Cornelissen of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) whose boat, the Farley Mowatt, was being detained at Cape Town harbour  "under the guise of red tape, but it was really at the behest of the Japanese government," she says.

The crew had no way out of the harbour and no food.  In return for the latter, the captain would give her a tour of the boat.  The crew were vegans and Nikki immediately went out and bought two trolley fulls of vegan food.

The tour of the boat included Cornelissen telling them about sealing and whaling and all the other atrocities perpetrated against the oceans.  Nikki's Damascus moment was the point when he described how he stood ankle deep in seal blood on the ice floes of Canada.  She had finally found her purpose.

She realized there was no way she could go home and pretend what she had learnt was not real. "I needed to do something.  I had never been involved in activism and knew nothing about it.  So I went home and internetted the hell out of the topic and at the end of the day I knew I had found my calling."

She sent an email to Francois Hugo of the local organization Seal alert (Bolander The Seal Whisperers 3 August 2011) then joined up with Francois and was his spokesperson for 3 years.

One thing led to another. Nikki decided to become politically active for animals. In order to understand how laws were made and passed, one needed to understand the politics and the decision makers behind it. So she joined up with the DA and was constituency secretary for the Cape Town CBD ward.

The incident where a DA Councillor violated the Animal Protection act and received a "slap on the wrist for bringing the party's name into disrepute" upset Nikki.     "It became clear that animal welfare wasn't high on the agenda and I often sat in meetings and had to bite my tongue when activists were denigrated and ridiculed. When the DA decided to implement an archaic, racist law which would pass as an animal welfare by-law, I put my foot down. I was in a ward meeting and was told straight out by the chairperson that the DA would rather lose the vote of animal lovers than lose a Councillor.  I wasn't towing the party line and I wasn't willing to sacrifice my ethics, morals and principles."  So she resigned – very publicly.  

            Meanwhile, Nikki had got involved with the local chapter of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society of which she currently shares the running, together with two other ladies.

            She has joined the SSCS in several campaigns, in Taiji as a Cove Guardian (a subsequent film The Cove won several international awards.  Nikki considers this to be her most rewarding mission.)

She was also part of Operation Desert Seal in Namibia where they covertly filmed the cruel seal slaughter, escaping at night with their equipment in a dramatic chase through the desert, pursued by the Namibian authorities who listed them as "a threat to national security" and banned them from entering Namibia ever again.

And then there was their operation Sunu Gaal, which is their anti-poaching patrol on the West Coast of Africa. It is operated from a vessel called the Jairo Mora Sandoval, named in honour of a young South American turtle activist who was murdered by poachers. 

            Their latest campaign was as part of Operation Grindstop 2014 in the Faroe Islands where she and her five team mates were arrested for interfering with the inhumane grind. They were fined kr1000 each (which they refuse to pay) and banned from the Faroe Islands for one year.

I asked Nikki about their stay in jail and the subsequent court case, which must have been harrowing.  She shrugged her shoulders and replied that for her a visit to the dentist was worse. 

            But it is clear that despite their fighting with everything they had to save those whales, the harrowing experience of watching entire pods, babies included, being butchered left emotional scars with which they are still battling to come to terms. "We might have been on trial for allegedly breaking the law, but the Faroe Islands are on trial and the world needs to find them guilty. No decent person could ever condone the complete and utterly abhorrent way those animals were treated and butchered."

            Nikki's main focus now is lobbying for change within a constitutional framework. As such she no longer considers herself to be an animal rights activist, she says, but rather a civil society activist: "Because no civil society treats animals the way we do."

            In this she is supported by her husband "my dream man who loves me unconditionally and supports me in everything that I do."

 

 

Beatrice Wiltshire

CIRCUS ANIMALS' PLIGHT HIGHLIGHTED

                 

Circuses have a special magic in the life of a child, but the ethical question of the use of wild animals in circuses has engendered public outrage.

 As there is now increasing evidence about animal sentience several countries have banned the use of wild animals in circuses, with good reason, whilst still retaining the magical atmosphere of clowns, trapeze artists, acrobats, magicians and music.

South Africa has not yet followed the overseas example but momentum towards a ban is picking up since an exposé on Carte Blanche in April last year which has also resulted in many standing up and organising demonstrations country-wide. 

Accordingly, activists from various walks of life, some travelling from Cape Town, staged a peaceful protest  on Saturday 8^th February to raise awareness of the practice of using wild animals in circus acts, when McClaren's Circus came to the Gordon High School in Somerset West.

McClaren's boasts a variety of animals including white lions and Bengal Tigers. Clearly not everybody was impressed with the notion of incarcerating wild animals in cages and teaching them tricks for public amusement.

Toni Brockhoven who manages media liaison for Beauty without Cruetly (BWC) and who also travelled through from Cape Town, said that given the choice, no animal would choose to live an unnatural life of captivity, regardless of the kindness of the treatment and no animal would choose a life that allows none of their natural behaviour.

"Certainly animals would not choose to be taken from their families to be obliged to amuse us.  Circus animals spend months travelling in small, bare cages. The stress of  continued confinement as well as the transportation result in long term suffering and a lack of appropriate social interaction, reduction in time spent foraging and the restricted freedom to perform natural behaviours represent stressors for captive animals," she said. 

A natural environment cannot be recreated in circuses due to the travelling, with  inadequate  accommodation and exercise areas, forced movement and handling by humans.  Noise, along with confinement results in both short-term as well as long-term behavioural and psychological effects.

            Toni feels that teaching children that wild animals belong in cages for our use and amusement is not the way to go. "There are so many options today to teach children about animals in their natural environment, with a wide range of educational nature films readily available," she said.

            Somerset resident Louise Spagnuolo who helped organize the protest said that many local residents sent messages to Gordon High requesting that they not host circuses featuring wild animals.  No reply had as yet been received.

They were aware that Gordon High probably had contractual responsibilities, but it was hoped that they would not host circuses featuring wild animals in future," she said.

To which Asanda Village resident Kenesias Dambakurima added: "Free them from slavery."

            When asked for his views on the matter, Paul Hart who runs the Drakenstein Lion Sanctuary outside Paarl pointed out that he currently had eight lions rescued from circuses.  Having seen the effects on these animals, he does not support the use of wild animals in circuses.

            Alan Perrins, Chief Executive Officer of the SPCA stated: "Wild animals belong in the wild."

 Bolander also posed the question to him: "Local authorities require rescued lions to be housed in enclosures no smaller than 400 sq.metres and yet take no action in cases where circus lions spend their lives in cramped caravans.  How can this be justified?"

            At the time of going to press, no answer had been received.

 

SECOND PROTEST HELD AGAINST WILD CREATURES IN CAPTIVITY

 

Close to 100 people again demonstrated peacefully on the corner of the N2 and De Beers Avenue outside the Gordon High School on Saturday 15^th, against having wild animals in circuses. 

Law Enforcement were out in full force to see that they stayed within the limits of their permit, as were members of  Mclaren circus. 

The media officer for the latter would not answer any queries except in writing.  However he did say that they had no objection to the protest adding that "all animals were removed from their families at some stage anyway."   

When asked by Bolander at what age it happened that lion cubs were naturally separated from their families, he did not know but said he would ask their trainer.

Kenesias Dambakurima, who works for a media company and lives in Asanda village, was present and energetically led the chant: "No no no; nee, nee, nee." He said he loved wild animals and started his animal activism in 2010.

            Resident Louise  Spagnuolo, who organised the protest, said that McClarens claimed that their animals were well cared for  "But this justification was like saying that rape was  O.K. if you bought her champagne and  chocolates beforehand and provided a nice, soft bed."

           

 

ROARING FOR A CAUSE

ROARING FOR A CAUSE

 

In a world first, on the 15^th March 2014  organizations and activists joined marches in 65 cities around the world to protest against the 'canned' lion hunting industry.

 

This was the result of a process which started in early 1991 when Gareth Patterson learned that hunters in the Eastern Cape had used bows and arrows to kill lions and some time later an undercover video came to hand which showed the sickening scene of a 'canned' trophy hunt 

at the Marlothi game farm close to the Kruger National Park's southern boundary.

 

The video caused the investigative Cook Report team in Britain to arrange for an undercover hunting team to travel to South Africa, with Roger Cook himself posing as a wealthy but unwell 'client.'  (Bolander June 5 2013). Their subsequent report, shown in South Africa on Carte Blanche, sent shock waves throughout the world in 1997.

 

 It also spurred into action Chris Mercer and Bev Pervan of the Kalahari Raptor Centre who started a campaign to get canned hunting banned in South Africa. In their Publication "Canned Lion unting Hunting - A National Disgrace" which also contained their submission to the S.A. Government, they unting – a National Disgrace" they describe how they wdescribe how "they were snubbed by just about every wildlife organization in the country, from nature conservation authorities to N.G.O's, from hunting organizations to environmental journalists.  No political party showed any interest in fighting this cause.  The environmental ethic in South Africa was that animals were a mere resource to be used."

 

The canned hunting industry flourished, as did the various industries which fed upon its practice – the lion breeding farms and 'cub petting' and 'walking with the lions' facilities, the trophy hunters and taxidermists, the circuses and zoos and, eventually, the taxidermists.   Also the lion bone industry, the bones being sold to known Asian crime syndicates who pay lion farmers for  lion carcasses, which are processed in Asia and then fraudulently sold as tiger bone cake at (US$1000 per 100 grams) for unproven medicinal purposes.

 

But with a dogged determination Chris and Bev persisted and founded the Campaign Against Canned Hunting (CACH).  Not getting much support in South Africa, their unrelenting lobbying was directed world-wide.

 

This persistence paid off, critical mass being reached 15 years later with the Global March being  organized, proving that a vast number of people across the world would no longer be silent about the cruelty involved.  

Sixty five cities came aboard with thousands of people marching to tell the world about the nightmare which is the horrific canned hunting industry in South Africa and that they wanted to see lions living wild and free.

 

In Los Angeles TheTokens performed live the original version of their number one hit and theme song of Disney's Lion King.

 

In South Africa marches took place in Durban, Johannesburg, Grahamstown and Cape Town where an estimated 1,700 people marched, with Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu's daughter Rev. Mpho Tutu joining the latter.  She read out the Arch's prayer "for all God's beautiful wildlife, especially the wild white lion, that are at risk because of the (human) predators going around destroying them." He also prayed for blessings on those who had made public this practice and that they would succeed in their quest.

 Chris Mercer from CACH handed over a submission to Dr. Mario Ambrosini MP for delivery to Deputy Director General Dr. Guy Preston of the Department of Environmental Affairs.

 

According to Mercer, a retired lawyer, there is no legal definition of canned hunting, but the key is the absence of fair chase. So "canned hunting is where the target animal is unfairly prevented from escaping the hunter, either by physical constraints (fencing) or by mental constraints (tame, habituated to humans.) On this definition, all hunts of captive bred lions are canned hunts."

 

He goes on to point out that there are fewer than 4000 lions left in the 'wild' in South Africa, but more than 8,000 in captivity, being bred for the bullet or the arrow, with the number increasing daily. "Lion farming is a real threat to wild lion prides, for many reasons. The on-going capture of wild lions to introduce fresh blood into captive breeding and the growth of the lion bone trade to Asia will impact severely on wild lions from poaching."

 

Already there are reports in the media about wild lions being killed in Botswana to obtain cubs which are then smuggled across the border into S.A. Unscrupulous S.A. lion breeders will buy them to bring fresh blood to their lion stock for genetic reasons, and to ward off captivity depression.

 

This wholesale and unscientific killing of lions has long term effects on wild prides, destroying the core pride function. Research shows that it can take as long as seven years for a lion pride to re-establish itself after the death of the trophy male.

 

"The public needs to be informed through sustained campaigns and the US and EU governments being persuaded to ban the import of lion/predator trophies. Only that way can the supply of dollars be cut off and the industry closed down," Mercer says.

 

 Lion farming does not fall under the Department of Agriculture but the Supreme Court has ruled that it has nothing to do with conservation, so it cannot be regulated by conservation officials either. Lion farming thus falls between two government departments. In consequence, captive predators bred for hunting purposes have no regulatory protection.

 

"In the end," he says, "canned hunting only exists because of a failure of government policy, and being ferociously defended by wealthy vested interests." 

 

It is causing a backlash against tourism to South Africa. Ethical tourists are already boycotting SA, causing losses to the legitimate tourism industry.

 

These boycotts will surely increase over time with sustained pressure through world-wide campaigns such as the recent global march against canned hunting.

TINY TEACUP PIGS' AND HUMAN FOLLIES

' 

Humans appear to have a fascination for small animals that can be held in the palm of one's hand and so potbellied pigs were introduced into the United States in 1985 and promoted as the perfect house pet.  Correctly, it was claimed that they were easier to house train than dogs and did not carry fleas but, in the interests of sales, essential information was omitted.

            The average "tiny teacup pig" weighs 80 kg on reaching adulthood – so it was not long before they were abandoned, much like puppies purchased on a whim at Christmas time.  They can also become extremely aggressive and, following their natural instincts, root up carpets as well as your garden.  This craze has now reached South Africa and is already creating a problem for animal welfare societies country-wide that have had  to deal with the consequences of their being dumped as they reach adulthood.

            It does rather seem as if the new about-to-be-promulgated animal by-laws do not make specific provision for potbellied pigs as pets, or about their limitation per household, as is the case with cats and dogs, leading to unintended consequences A question directed to Alan Perrins, CEO of the Cape of Good Hope ope SPCA, about whether these would fall under the classification of farm animals or pets, elicited the brief response: "semantics."

            According to Cora Bailey of Community Led Animal Welfare (CLAW), they have been dealing with this problem in Gauteng for some time.

            People are dumping their formerly cosseted "tiny teacup pigs" in townships to be slaughtered in which-ever way people see fit.

            Clearly there is a serious gap in the by-law here.

THE JOY AND TRAGEDY OF PIGS

 

Winston Churchill said: Dogs look up to you cats look down on you, but pigs treat you like equals.

             Pigs resemble human beings in many ways.  Like dogs and other animals they share many of our feelings - compassion, fear, and their need for companionship and intelligence.

They are able to solve problems and have been shown to excel at video games that would be hard for a young child, and sometimes perform better than primates.

Karl Schwenke points out in his 1985 classic, In a Pig's Eye:  "Pigs are gregarious animals. Like children they thrive on affection, enjoy toys, have a short attention span and are easily bored.  Much like children, piglets do not develop in a normal way when they are deprived of the opportunity to engage in play. They are at least as intelligent as dogs and have been known to rescue their owners from drowning.

They also dream and see colours like us. It is now recognised that they know when they are going to be slaughtered. Like dogs, they are individuals.

            The one big difference between pigs and dogs is the way we treat them.  We play with our dogs, take them for walks - we rarely do the same with pigs. It is difficult to understand why they receive such a raw deal. 

            George Orwell's classic novel, Animal Farm, is generally considered to be a political fable about totalitarianism and Russia.  However, as Jeffrey Masson points out, Orwell himself saw it in another light, explaining in a preface written for the Ukranian translation, that the story came to him when he saw a little boy, perhaps ten years old, abusing a carthorse.    

            He was struck with the force of a revelation "that men exploit animals in much the same way as the rich exploit the proletariat" and proceeded to analyze Marx's theory from the animals' point of view.

            In the beginning of the book, as Major tells the animals on the farm, "No animal in England knows the meaning of happiness or leisure after he is a year old. No animal in England is free. The life of an animal is misery and slavery: that is the plain truth."

            And so, as farm animals, pigs now live in a world that has become very far removed from nature -  and where the purpose of their existence is almost entirely defined by their death or exploitation, where animals are seen as objects and have to earn their keep  along the world view of  if it pays it stays.  We confine pigs in factory farms in sheds where they are constantly impregnated, and where they stand on slats, not even able to move around.  As piglets their tails are docked without anaesthetic and in the end, like the old horse in Animal Farm, their fate is the slaughterhouse.

            But a visit to the Rustler's Valley community, near Ficksburg in the Free State, demonstrated again the symbiotic relationship between human- and non-human animals, where the pigs' keen sense of smell and natural inclination to root is used to the benefit of all.

The Rustlers' Valley community practices permaculture, a sustainable way of agriculture which is about "caring for the environment so that the environment can care for us." The use of  pesticides and other chemicals is dispensed with by the inter-planting of  crops with herbs that heal the soil and keep away harmful pests.   In working with nature mechanical devices are dispensed with.  New veggie patches are prepared by making use of 'pig tractoring.'  A sty is erected over a patch of veld which is to be cleared.

            The pigs then root to their hearts' content, clearing the ground of unwanted vegetation and spreading manure to feed the soil. As such, everybody is happy and the community is able to live off the land entirely.

Proposed Animal Welfare Laws for Western Cape under Scrutiny

                    

 

During October 2013 the City of Cape Town put out for public comment a draft animal welfare policy for the Western Cape.  The Animal Protection Act of 1962 still informs national welfare policy despite the changing values, norms and principles of our new non-racial society being very different from those in place all those years ago when the legislation was passed.

Owing to public pressure, the national government as long ago as 2006 put out a draft policy document called the "Draft Animal Care Policy for South Africa" but since then the trail has gone cold with no progress being made, at national level, on taking up the suggestions in the draft. It is speculated that this is due to cultural practices that are arguably a criminal contravention of the Animal Protection Act.

            "These considerations do not, however, constrain the law-makers of the Western Cape where the DA governs at both provincial and city level. Its policies are therefore those that ought to inform the laws, by-laws and regulations in place in this province and its mother city," points out Adv. Paul Hoffman SC, director of the Institute for Accountability in Southern Africa, who also referred to the fact that the DA did not have a policy on animals as disclosed by the Premier of the Western Cape, Helen Zille except that they were opposed to cruelty against animals. Zille suggested that an animal welfare forum be established, which would include all animal welfare organizations.  The subsequent draft policy was put out for public participation.

            Alan Perrins, Chief Executive Officer for the Cape of Good Hope SPCA and chairperson of the Animal Welfare Forum, feels encouraged by the draft policy which recognizes the sentience of animals and makes sterilization compulsory under certain conditions. (Mandatory sterilization of cats and dogs is a stance already adopted by other Municipalities in South Africa including Swellendam and Kannaland.)

            Sterilization as a strategy would address the cause, not just effects, of the many problems attendant upon the over-population of animals, such as the resultant burden on welfare organizations who are filled to capacity with unwanted animals.

Presently a disproportionate amount of donors' funding is being spent on euthanasing instead of re-homing and sterilization.  In this respect, the Animal Welfare Forum decries the gross underfunding of municipal pounds such as the official City pound at Atlantis.

An annual figure of, say R 250 000 – R300 000 is woefully inadequate for its efficient running, with the costs then spilling over onto other animal welfare organizations who receive absolutely no funding from the City. The Cape SPCA alone has had to spend around two million rands of donor funds on collecting animals and spaying them or euthanasing them humanely.

Still remaining also, are serious challenges to enforcing the bylaws such as animals being defined as property or possessions in terms of the law while, at the same time, the draft animal welfare policy acknowledges their sentience.

This anomaly can only be resolved by lobbying at national government level as national laws will always supercede provincial ones.

Further challenges, says Perrins, are entrenched cruel practices resulting in avoidable cruelty such as battery farming and sow crates.  Fortunately there has been a change in attitude   since a decade or so ago with consumers world-wide becoming increasingly aware and abhorrent of cruel farming practices and opting to buy ethically produced foods and goods.

The challenges described are but some of the legal loopholes in the draft animal welfare policy of which just one example is the potbellied pig (also erroneously referred to by the misnomer 'tea cup' pig .

These reside under the classification of farm animals and the problem arises when people don't do their homework properly and then take them into their homes as pets, not realizing (as with huskies) the tremendous problems which can result when the animal reaches adulthood.

The potbellied pig, raised as a four legged child in the family, then suddenly finds himself taken for slaughter in any which way as they are not even afforded the meagre legal protection of pets such as dogs and cats. Only the lucky ones land up at the animal welfare organizations.

            Perhaps the way forward would lie in creating a single Department of Animal Welfare under which all animal issues would resort, thus avoiding the current fragmentation to different  departments, such as agriculture, health, etc., of issues that are of a cross cutting nature. In this respect Adv. Paul Hoffman points out that the City of Los Angeles established such a "Department of Animal Welfare" in 1978, making them a forerunner in the sphere of  implementing and enforcing humane, modern and sensible animal welfare policies.