Animals in the crosshairs

Usually the poisoning of dogs is a method used by thieves to gain access to homes to rob them, but there have been some incidents of cats being poisoned as well.

According to Casseldale resident Candice Stones, cats in her area are being targeted and not dogs.

“There is someone that is poisoning the neighbourhood cats. Most recently a neighbour’s cat and a day later my gorgeous cat Zepplin, who was three years old, were poisoned ” she says.

She believes that people are targeting cats for fun, because according to her, the dogs in the neighbourhood are fine.

On the night her cat was poisoned, Stones noticed something wrong with him.

“Zepplin ran into the kitchen cupboard, foaming at the mouth and fitting. His face looked as if it was swollen. By this stage, apparently the poison had gone to his brain, so he did not know who I was any more. It was horrible,” she explains.

Karine Myburgh from the Springs SPCA says that poisoning is a big problem but it is not just cats being targeted.

“Often people will throw meat into a garden laced with poison meant for a dog, but a cat will pick it up first. We can’t be sure that the intension is to kill cats only,” she says.

Candice is now afraid to let her other cat out of the house, for fear that she will also be poisoned.

“I really want the people who are doing this to know that they are causing extreme pain for no good reason other than their hate for cats,” she says tearfully.

Illegal hunting is also taking its toll on wild animals in and around Springs.

Maureen McRae, who lives in a secluded part of Struisbuit, has had problems with people hunting the wild animals around her house.

“They come with packs of dogs and also lay down snares to catch the buck and Cape foxes that live in the area,” she says.

McRae looks after the foxes and other animals around her house and says she is deeply saddened by the fact that these hunters leave the animals to suffer.

She says she has found a lot of snares in the forested areas around her house and has had the SPCA out numerous times to remove the snares.

“The SPCA have been a great help, but the hunters just keep coming back. One time there was a buck that had been caught in a snare and was still alive, but had a badly mangled leg,” she remembers with distaste.

Myburgh says that there is legal hunting allowed in the winter months, but the use of snares is completely illegal.

“Hunters who use packs of dogs to hunt or snares to catch animals are doing so illegally. Even during hunting season, this is not allowed,” she warns.

She urges McRae and anyone else who knows of illegal hunting in the area to try and get more information about the hunter, like a name or vehicle registration number, so that the SPCA can find that person.

“We will always come out to a property to remove the snares, but the hunter will just come back and lay more and we can only stop them if we can find out who they are,” says Myburgh.