Westlake Community Forum chairman George Taylor contacted the Record with a detailed explanation of the strange activity in Hamerkop Bird Sanctuary on Westlake Avenue.
Taylor recalled an incident on the morning of 26 June at around 11am when, as he drove down Dabchick Street, he saw a man in a blue overall inside the sanctuary. He stopped his vehicle and asked the man what he was doing in the sanctuary.
“He had a plastic container with him. He told me that he was looking for gold and allegedly had already found some.”
Taylor also confronted the man about the fire in the sanctuary the week before, when he also saw him and two other men in the park, assuming they were council workers.
“I asked him why he and his two companions had set fire to the park the previous week, but he denied involvement.”
At 1pm on the same day Taylor again saw the three men in the park on his way home.
Taylor was unable to get hold of DA Councillor Marianne Kemp at the time because she was on sick leave, but did attempt to report the problem to City Parks.
At a later stage Kobus Theunissen of City Parks contacted Taylor to discuss the issue.
“He said that they have problems with gold diggers in the sanctuary, but that these men are not responding to the actions they have taken.”
Taylor could not specify the steps that were taken to solve the problem, but told the Record that Theunissen and City Parks personnel set out to replace the locks on the gates once again because apparently, these locks are broken to gain illegal entry into the sanctuary.
