Police in dog box over dogs

2003-05-04 21:30

Retha Fourie

Mooketsi - Several criminal charges have been filed against police officers and a director of the country's largest tomato farm after 17 hunting dogs, worth about R1.5 million, were shot over the weekend.

Charges of wilful damage to property and contraventions of the Animal Protection Act against the police and farmer will be referred to the office of the public prosecutor this week.

A dog handler is also being charged with illegal hunting.

This comes after security guards caught an illegal hunter with a pack of dogs on the ZZ2 farm.

The man, Kenneth Maswanganyi, apparently works as a dog handler for Tolstoi Kruger - a professional hunting guide who owns the neighbouring farm.

The guards alerted one of the farm's directors who called the police.

Maswanganyi was arrested for illegal hunting on the same day and paid an admission of guilt fine of R300, police spokesperson Moatshe Ngoepe said.

Kruger, the owner of the dogs, was in Johannesburg at the time.

The police apparently phoned Kruger to fetch his dogs, but when he didn't arrive immediately, they decided to put the dogs down.

Ngoepe said the officers made the decision because of the problems that farmers in the area experienced with illegal hunting, especially by hunters with spears and packs of dogs.

A homemade spear and butcher's knife were found in Maswanganyi's possession.

Police officers, the farmer and security staff apparently took the dogs into the veld where they shot them and buried them in a hole.

One of the people who helped to shoot the dogs said it wasn't an easy task.

"It was just as difficult as it is to put down a wounded buck after the dogs of illegal hunters attacked it and tore off the animal's ears and testicles."

Kruger said police decided to kill his valuable dogs despite the fact that he had asked them to keep the dogs until he could fetch them on Tuesday.

- Beeld