While inspectors at the Cape of Good Hope SPCA were busy attending to a cruelty case involving two dogs kept on short chains in a backyard, Inspector Lwazi Ntungele was attending to a complaint of an animal kept on a short chain in someone is yard, but instead of finding a dog on a chain, he discovered a tortoise.
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Inspector Lwazi recalls his surprise upon arriving at the property after responding to a complaint to the SPCA about an animal tethered to a pole in a backyard while being denied access to clean drinking water and proper shelter.
‘Entering the dusty yard, I was looking around for a dog but immediately saw this very large tortoise tethered on a short rope that was tied around a pole. There was some sort of container nearby with nothing in it but algal growth, I assume that was once its water bowl,’ he recounts.
He then noticed that there was no greenery nearby, which could indicate that the tortoise had access to the type of fresh plant matter that a large tortoise requires in its daily diet.
As for shelter, an old table was turned on its side and a piece of cardboard was used as a roof.
When the SPCA inspector asked why he needed to keep the tortoise on a chain, the ‘owner’ claimed it was to keep the tortoise from wandering off.
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‘I asked him why he even had a tortoise in the first place. He claimed that the tortoise walked up to his front door one day and that was a sign for him to keep it as a pet.’
The tortoise was removed from the property immediately in accordance with the Animals Protection Act. Keeping indigenous wildlife as a pet without the necessary permits is illegal under the Western Cape Nature Conservation Ordinance. The ‘owner’ was given a formal warning that he could not keep any wild animals, especially indigenous tortoises, on his property.
Inspector Lwazi wasted no time in untying the tortoise and transporting it to the SPCA Wildlife Department at the Cape of Good Hope for care, proper food, and medical attention.
Cape of Good Hope SPCA Wildlife Department Supervisor Jon Friedman comments that ‘the Cape of Good Hope SPCA Wildlife Department receives, and removes tens of tortoises each week; rescued from situations where they are kept either chained up in people’s yards, slowly dismembered for body parts to be used as ingredients in traditional medicine recipes, or to be kept as pets. Tortoises walk incredibly far distances in a day in the search for food, water and the company of their own kind. They are also hugely intelligent animals capable of feeling pain, fear, frustration, hunger, boredom and loneliness and their specific dietary needs mean that they do not make ideal pets.’
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Picture: Cape of Good Hope SPCA