Warning: Image and content not for sensitive readers.

A horse from Thembalethu in George in the Western Cape was butchered for human consumption in broad daylight on the sidewalk of Nelson Mandela Boulevard on Monday, after it was allegedly hit and killed by a taxi earlier that morning.

The initial incident that caused the death of the animal was not reported to the Garden Route SPCA (GRSPCA), but the butchering of the animal was reported to them the following day.

According to eyewitnesses, a taxi hit and killed the horse after which police officers attended the scene. However, the police officers were allegedly told by a resident that they shouldn’t phone the GRSPCA to remove the carcass as the resident wanted the meat. Apparently, the officers then left the scene and the resident started butchering the horse next to the road.

In the meantime, George Herald received distressing video footage and images depicting the carcass of a horse being butchered about 5km from the Thembalethu Police Station.

Photos and videos showing the decapitated horse, and the dead animal on the road the previous evening, were also sent to the paper.

It is unclear at this stage why the carcass was not removed by authorities shortly after it was found dead in the road.

“While the exact cause of death remains uncertain, individuals from Thembalethu were seen in the video skinning and [butchering] the horse, purportedly for consumption purposes,” said GRSCPA senior inspector Salomé Bruyns.

“The SPCA expresses deep concern regarding the theft of horses and strongly advises the owners to file a case of theft and enhance security measures accordingly.”

Horse theft rife in Pacaltsdorp

At first it was suspected that the mare was a stolen horse from the Pacaltsdorp Riding Club (PRC), but PRC confirmed on Tuesday morning that it didn’t belong to any of their members.

This came as a quite a surprise, as the horse owners community and members of PRC have been relentlessly targeted by horse thieves who allegedly cross from Thembalethu to Pacaltsdorp. Regular, sometimes daily, occurrences of horse theft have left the PRC members despondent.

“Our horses are stolen nearly every day and we are at our wits’ end,” said a member of the club.

“We find them either tied up in the bush, dead or ridden so hard that they collapse, or the pregnant mares have miscarriages. They get stolen and while some are ridden right through the night until they can’t any more, others end up on the road and being hit by vehicles,” he said.

The club reached out to the municipality to assist with an official lease agreement for the property that the riding club is currently operating from.

According to George Municipality’s communications manager Chantèl Edwards, a meeting was held with PRC on February 1. “The municipality is awaiting their application for lease of a piece of land identified,” she said.

A media enquiry regarding the butchering has been sent to the police and the municipality. The article will be updated once responses are received.