Help Pretoria SPCA face its biggest challenge in 2020

The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) Tshwane have been communicating their desperate financial situation to the public since the end of last year. To better its financial position, and to ensure that the SPCA Tshwane can continue serving the animals of Tshwane, various options to increase funding and generate income have been explored over the past couple of months.

Sadly, the society has not been able to secure the levels of funding it needs. The bottom line is that the SPCA Tshwane cannot operate without resources such as staff, vehicles and funds. The society’s primary mandate is to prevent cruelty to animals. They have six full-time inspectors covering an enormous area of 6 200km throughout Tshwane and surrounding areas.

In order to deliver on their mandate and protect the animals of Tshwane, qualified inspectors, support staff, and vehicles are necessary. The staff must be paid salaries and vehicles, especially those that cover many kilometres a month, must be regularly maintained. Once an animal arrives at one of their two branches, the second phase of expenses start.

Often intensive veterinary care and treatment is required, or even surgery. In order to provide the best care, and to alleviate the pain and suffering, our qualified in-house veterinarians operate a fully equipped veterinary hospital. The veterinarian’s salary, medication, medical consumables, hospital equipment, and support staff and resources are all needed to ensure proper care for animals. The SPCA has a significant number of kennels, catteries and animal enclosures. These are almost always filled to capacity and the centre follows strict and intensive daily hygiene protocols to ensure the safest and best environment for the animals.

“We never turn any animal away. But our ability to help the abused, neglected and forgotten animals of Tshwane is severely hampered if we do not have funds to maintain our vehicles, pay our staff, pay our municipal account, buy animal food or pay for veterinary care,” said Dewald Wahlstrand, general manager of the SPCA Tshwane (Waltloo branch).

“Can you imagine the immense suffering of animals, should the society have to limit its services drastically due to financial constraints? The society needs to bring in R1 million by the end of this month, to overcome our desperate financial situation.

“We cannot keep up with the workload if our funding does not increase at the same rate.” At this stage society’s biggest challenge is operational costs – paying for day-to-day operational expenses, including salaries, utilities and vehicle costs. “Luckily the public generously responds to donate food and animal products, so we are blessed that our store rooms are rarely empty. Now the quest is to raise money,” said Wahlstrand.