WILLIAM CARBIS of Glen Marais writes:
I fully agree with correspondent H Kotze (Rabbit hunter is no criminal) who strongly objected to the abuse by the police and the SPCA of a man who was hunting for rabbits with his dogs, and was arrested after complaints from Serengeti residents.
There is not much I can add to Kotze’s well-expressed letter to Kempton Express. I am also a nature lover and am personally averse to hunting any of God’s creatures for sport. In fact, I am a vegetarian.
But good sense would surely lead one to question the exact circumstances of the hunt. Was the man perhaps hunting for the pot as many hungry humans have done for centuries? What’s next in the excessive overreaction, I wonder? Arresting schoolkids at the local vlei for fishing, and the SPCA confiscating their fishing rods?
Many Kempton Park gardeners must now be fearing the police swooping on them for gassing mole heaps in their gardens and the SPCA confiscating their fumigation equipment. The mind boggles.
The police services and the SPCA both do much superb work to improve our South African society but unfortunately sometimes they get it horribly wrong.
Also read:
• Man (25) arrested for hunting rabbits with dogs at Serengeti
I question the police arresting a man for hunting rabbits which are regarded by many as being fast- breeding, highly destructive vermin. The saying that “they breed like rabbits” springs to mind.
After rabbits were introduced to Australia for hunting sport they did just that and became a destructive plague which destroyed much of the Australian outback’s natural and farming vegetation.
The SPCA’s conduct in confiscating the hunter’s dogs without obtaining a court order is also highly questionable. From the picture in Kempton Express all the dogs seemed to be extremely well cared for and not neglected at all.
Last week SABC TV flighted a story about a SPCA depot manager who was so incensed at the large number of strays euthanased by the society that she had rebelled and stopped all killing of healthy animals in defiance of her employer’s directives.
So, the SPCA should first look in the mirror before victimising a man hunting rabbits.
Maybe the police and SPCA should re-think their heavy-handed aggression, apologise, drop any charges pending against the man and return his canine companions to him? It takes the bigger person to apologise and admit they are wrong.
