Another zebra from Stainbank Nature Reserve has died, leaving many unanswered questions.
The recent mortality is the second since February.
In the first incident, an eight-week foal was found by a ranger, after it was separated from its herd. His mother was unable to produce enough milk to sustain him, which led to its collapse. The foal also suffered from a severe tick infestation. He succumbed to his conditions a few days later.
In a letter to KZN Wildlife, Pastor Warren Dick wrote that he had seen a sickly zebra foal on the reserve on Saturday, 15 March. When he contacted a field ranger he was told the zebra “will inevitably die”. The foal suffered from a severe parasitic infection which left it with no mane. It was underweight and its coat was dull and dusty and its mother rejected it. He was told many foals suffer the same fate as a result of inbreeding.
“This is animal cruelty and something needs to be done. It’s not fair to the animal that it’s born just to die a slow and agonising death,” said Pastor Dick. He questioned why money was spent to upgrade the castle yet no concern was showed for the animals.
The Sun queried KZN Wildlife as to what they are doing to curb the deaths and about the money being spent on upgrades to the castle. KZN Wildlife confirmed the castle, belonged to them but it was in the hands of the Stainbank family and it spent no money on the upgrades.
“There is inbreeding taking place and weak, sickly foals are being born as a result. The staff have to live with this every day and watch the animals suffer and this traumatises our staff as they often feel helpless. We have been waiting for fresh blood stock to come and reverse this trend for some time now. The reserve is on the list to receive fresh males and we wait on our processes to finalise the translocation of new males,” said KZN department of agriculture’s spokesman, Jeffrey Zikhali.
“For the reserve staff to say they are waiting for the babies to die is a response based on their frustrations and anguish at watching a number of babies die and there is nothing they can do about it. Our option as staff is to shoot the sick animals but this we only do as a last resort when we know the animal will definitely die. I assure you that we exist for these animals and anything happening to them causes unbearable stress to us too.”
He assured the Sun that the foal was taken to a centre for medical attention before it died.
