Fifteen employees have lost their jobs at the Tshwane SPCA and services have been scaled down as the society battles to get funding.
City residents will no longer be able to adopt pets from the Waltloo branch of the Tshwane SPCA after it was forced to close its adoption section, which has been running for more than 30 years.
But after running at a shortfall for the past few years, it was decided that adoptions and unwanted animals would be dealt with at the Centurion branch.
“The board of directors has taken the difficult decision to downsize operations in order to cut expenses to the bone. This will result in the retrenchment of staff,” a statement on the organisation’s website reads. In the last financial year it was running at an estimated deficit of R350 000 a month.
The animal clinic and inspectorate will still be based at the Waltloo branch.
The Waltloo branch is no longer open on Saturdays and will only be open during the week for the animal clinic and receipt of donations.
Along with the closure of the adoptions section, 15 of the 43 employees face retrenchment.
Korky Levanon, spokeswoman for the SPCA, said it had been experiencing a decreased income stream over the past few years.
Because of rising operational costs and the constant rise in unwanted and abandoned animals, it had become too expensive to run adoption centres at both the Waltloo and Centurion branches.
“Our operational costs are high due to skyrocketing costs of consumables, fuel, electricity, water, etc. And to exacerbate the situation, the numbers of unwanted and abandoned animals have increased. Even in these adverse times, in the past 12 months we dealt with over 2 000 cruelty complaints, rehomed over 1 000 animals, sterilised 2 500 animals and reunited 600 animals with their owners,” the website said.
Another contributing factor is the absence of a municipal pound.
“For the last two years, in the interests of the animals, we have housed stray animals without remuneration from the municipality except for a short period during January and February 2013,” said Levanon. She said the ideal situation would be to have their own property instead of renting from the municipality – as they do with both the Waltloo and Centurion branches.
Levanon said support and donations from the public might keep the adoption section’s doors open.
The animal welfare organisation depends solely on donations from the public and receives no government funding.
“We appeal to the community to open their hearts to enable us to continue helping animals in need. All it would take is for 3 500 animal lovers to donate R100 per month. The Tshwane SPCA guarantees that all donations are used to benefit animals in need,” she said.
She said the SPCA remained committed to combating animal cruelty and thanked the public for their support and understanding. - Pretoria News