Alfred was called out on a case involving a duiker which had come up from the wooded area on the Umgeni river side and had been stoned by schoolboys wearing school uniforms. Scared out of its wits, it ran into the grounds of the Licensing Department, but instead of finding sanctuary, it was stoned to death by a security guard!

The SPCA was alerted by a man who had seen the little creature being stoned and had screamed down from his flat that the miscreants must stop. They didn’t, of course. By the time Alfred arrived, the duiker had been removed. But it hadn’t escaped; it was dead. It had been cornered and, helpless, had been unable to get away from the cruel onslaught of the stones. The next day, the security guard officer in charge and the manager of the Transport Section were interviewed.

They tried to excuse the guard on the grounds of ignorance. Jacqui said she could feel her own heart pounding and all she could think of was the heart of the helpless little duiker pounding as it was brutally killed. The SPCA does not accept that the man “did not know what he was doing”. He knew perfectly well, and if ignorance was indeed the cause, then he will learn something valuable and become somewhat less ignorant by being charged with cruelty. .... more reports »