Johannesburg - After months of mismanagement and neglect at the Rynfield Bunny Park in Benoni, animal welfare groups are now trying to garner public support to put pressure on the Ekurhuleni metro to resolve the matter.
Ban Animal Trading SA (Bat) and the Bunny Park Animals 911 Group organised a peaceful vigil on Thursday night outside the park.
Cars slowed down and hooted at the protesters who stood in a line along Pretoria Road, holding posters with solar-powered fairy lights which spelled out: “Save the bunny park animals”.
Other posters read: “No excuse for animal abuse” and “We speak in one voice for the voiceless”.
Tania Forrest-Smith of the 911 group said the park suffered under gross mismanagement, and explained the motivation for the vigil. “The park is in crisis. A worker with no qualifications has been put in charge. The protest is for the fact that there is no one running the park.”
A major problem is that the animals are apparently fed on sporadically by the park’s staff. “There are animals that are caged here, they didn’t choose to be caged, but they are not fed. On Sunday I fed the animals - the goats, pigs and sheep over 500kg of food - and I fed the birds 150kg,” she said.
Normally, Forrest-Smith would feed the animals a 50kg bag of pellets as well as vegetables daily, but she said that even that was not enough food for the starving animals.
On Wednesday, a volunteer at the park e-mailed Jaco Burger of the Ekurhuleni metro’s parks and cemeteries division to inform him that the animals had not been fed. In his response, which has been seen by The Star, Burger simply stated: “I do not know what to do.”
The two groups were also asking questions about the pregnant goats and newly born kids after Burger had assured them all rams at the park had been sterilised.
One of the youngest protesters at the vigil said that she regularly visited the park and that she had noticed many sick and deformed rabbits - an issue which The Star has previously reported on.
“They don’t look good,” said Danielle Kruger, 13, from Benoni.
“This is a good way to make people aware of what happens at the bunny park and to show that animals are being abused.”
Her aunt, Liesel Kruger, said that she had frequented the park as a youngster and was shocked to see the condition of the park and its animals. “This was our thing, we used to come here for school outings and now this is happening,” she said.
In February, the two welfare groups submitted court papers demanding that the metro improve conditions at the park. The case has not been heard yet.
The metro had not responded to requests for comment at the time of publication.
@Gabi_Falanga
The Star