FOUR cows narrowly escaped serious injury or even death, as a desperate grandmother made a last ditch effort to move them to better grazing.
The cattle were being transported on the back of a bakkie from Ntambanana to KwaDlangezwa on Friday afternoon.
Unfortunately, the vehicle ran out of diesel, coming to stop on Main Road near Five Ways Mall.
After nearly an hour in the sun, as the driver struggled to get the vehicle started again, the cattle were at serious risk of dehydration.
Empangeni SPCA inspector Roland Fivaz raced to the scene.
‘Transporting cattle in this manner is totally illegal,’ he said.
‘They were overcrowded, the vehicle was overloaded. They broke about four different laws.’
After assisting the grandmother to get the vehicle started, Fivaz followed the group to an area in KwaDlangezwa where they were offloaded.
‘I was told that the grandmother could only afford one trip, and that these four cattle were the last of 20 head still left to her,’ he said.
Apparently, the drought had left nothing but sand and a few puddles for her cattle to graze on, and as a result, they slowly died.
She decided to move the cattle, in a desperate attempt to save them.
‘For the past three months these cattle had no water,’ said Fivaz.
‘After they were offloaded, they drank about 200 litres of water in ten minutes.’
Desperate measures
Fivaz admits that people are desperate, but he emphasised that transport regulations for livestock were put in place to protect the animals.
‘She could easily have lost all four cows by transporting them the why she did, then she would have had nothing.’
The National SPCA has recently set up a new standard for livestock transport, through the South African Bureau of Standards.
Residents involved in transporting animals are urged to familiarise themselves with these regulations, as wrongdoing can result in a hefty fine.
