The Owl Rescue Centre in Lanseria has come under fire as it allegedly does not have permits to work with owls.
The centre was established to rehabilitate injured owls.
Free Me senior animal manager Nicci Wright said, “We operate under an Open Rehabilitation Permit that was granted to us by the Gauteng Department of Nature Conservation. We found out that the centre did not have a permit to rehabilitate wild animals. And it’s not fair towards us as we have worked hard for our permit and followed strict rules to obtain the permit.” Founder of the centre Brendan Murray explained, “It was never an issue that we worked without the permits. We used to work closely with Free Me until we started to work with Wildlife in Crisis. We have made an agreement with Wildlife in Crisis who gave us a sub-permit to work with them.”
Wildlife in Crisis manager Judy Davidson confirmed this and stated, “We have issued them with a sub-permit, but the actual permit will arrive within the next couple of weeks.”
Wright claimed it is not legal to operate with a sub-permit as each organisation must have their own. The Gauteng Department of Nature Conservation spokesperson Andile Gumede confirmed that the department did receive a complaint about the sub-permits used by the Owl Rescue Centre. He concluded, “We assigned a team of Green Scorpions to monitor the situation and follow up if the correct permits were obtained. It will however take a couple of weeks before we receive the feedback as the teams are extremely busy.”
Details: Free Me 011 807 6993.
