KILLER SNARES

More than half a dozen snares were removed last week from the Beacon Hill area by Johann Wilhelm of the Eastern Cape’s Retreat2Eden sanctuary and volunteer searcher Rudi van Rooyen (pictured).

Sadly, they were too late to save a magnificent buck, which Wilhelm said had “put up such a fight, and been so determined to get free”.

Wilhelm has been in Howick for the past month searching for lost dog Terry, who escaped from her transporters at Greendale, where her new owners were waiting, on arrival from Retreat2Eden in the Eastern Cape. She has been missing, and spotted, in various places since then, and Wilhelm drove up, with another dog Trixie, to search for her. He has been combing Howick in his search, and recently was near the Beacon Hill protected area, where she might have been spotted. To his distress, there were snares aplenty, and a dead animal, but no Terry.

“I couldn’t believe how many snares we took out or disabled,” he said.

“They were mainly just below the dump, and my heart broke when I saw the snared buck. We could see how it had fought so valiantly before finally dying … “

Wilhelm said public awareness “can trigger a groundswell of motivation and action, and honestly, you just need a group of people either wanting to get fit, or who are animal lovers, to scour this area weekly to remove those snares”.

“Perhaps a local hardware shop could sponsor sidecutters to disable these snares because many are now made of cable.

“You can use normal wirecutters for the regular ones, but these guys are clever: they know wirecutters don’t cut cable.”

Wilhelm, who is hugely appreciative of the support he’s received in his search for Terry, said team work “is what makes the positive difference in a community”.