Durban - Feral and stray cats have been banned from inside Transnet Engineering premises, including workshops, and staff have apparently been told they would be in trouble if they continued to feed or care for them.
Now Cats of Durban, whose volunteers look after stray and feral cats around the city, including at Transnet Engineering, has predicted that hundreds of cats across the country will die because of what they say is an “ill-considered directive” by a Transnet official.
Cats of Durban founder Niki Moore has said attempts to get Mirriam Tenyane, Transnet’s divisional executive responsible for compliance and regulatory affairs, to reconsider or amend the decision have been unsuccessful.
“This nationwide prohibition includes the Transnet properties where Cats of Durban has successfully been managing the feral cat populations,” she said.
Niki Moore
“Unfortunately, the directive does not take into account that the worldwide trend of problem animal management is to sustainable management, rather than extermination.
“Even more troubling, the directive orders staff that ‘where applicable, cats are to be handed over to animal NGOs/SPCA where they will be cared for’. This instruction is nonsensical. NGOs cannot adopt stray or feral animals, and these animals will be destroyed.”
Moore maintains that removing cats from the properties on the scale of national Transnet premises “is an inhumane, cruel and counter-productive procedure”, and points out that the work is done by pest control companies, who she says “trap them inhumanely and take them away for euthanasia”.
Within months, more cats will move in, they will also have to be trapped and euthanised and “the cycle of cruelty goes on”.
The ban on stray animals - including dogs and birds - inside Transnet Engineering premises is to prevent "potential health effects" on employees and to protect the animals from the activities inside the properties, the directive said.
“Transnet Engineering operates within South African legislation which includes different municipal by-laws, and this legislation has stringent controls (about) keeping and treating of animals within premises. These pieces of legislation also protect animals from any hurt or ill treatment,” the directive said.
Animals in the workplace are a hazard and a nuisance to employees, visitors and contractors, employees have been told. “Some employees might be allergic or scared of certain animals and every employee’s right in the workplace should therefore be protected."
Moore said there had been feral cat colonies on Transnet properties in Durban for decades.
“They were sterilised and managed and Transnet Engineering in Durban had even arranged to sponsor the costs of sterilisation. However, when the time came to pay the bill, the directive was issued instead,” she said.
Daily News