Stop letting animals stray onto roads

THE habit of leaving livestock to graze next to or near provincial roads is potentially hazardous to motorists and suggests some livestock owners simply don’t care about their animals.

For the problem of animals straying onto our roads to stop it must be addressed by livestock owners, traditional leaders and villagers. And this must happen before more accidents occur.

Even though government has put fences in a number of villages to prevent this, livestock owners allow animals to stray onto roads.

People continuously lose their lives. Others sustain injuries that disable their bodies. All of this can be avoided.

But rather the number of livestock straying onto roads in rural areas, and even into urban ones, is increasing. It is clear to us that the reason livestock are left to graze next to roads and are straying onto them is because the livestock owners don’t care about the safety of their animals. They are plainly negligent. Responsible livestock owners would see to it that shepherds were in place to ensure that flocks or herds graze on land or in camps far from the roads.

We cannot allow a situation to continue where people die needlessly because others are careless about their own livestock.

It also appears that efforts by the government to confiscate stray livestock is not a sufficient deterrent to this behaviour.

So we think that society must report this cruelty to animals to the SPCA so that charges can be brought against the owners.

The province has about 3.6 million cattle, eight million sheep, 450 000 dogs, and 350 000 horses.

This careless habit of allowing animals to wander onto the roads is also financially reckless because livestock have good economic value.

Owners can sell a sheep for between R1 100 to R1 500. A goat will go for R1 500 to R1 800 and cattle can be sold for as much as R10 000 each. Allowing animals to stray onto the roads is therefore not only dangerous but throwing away good money.

We don’t want any more accidents or deaths caused by straying livestock. This must end now.

The doors of the Department of Rural Development and Agrarian Reform are open to anyone who has a solution to this problem.

And as we spend our holidays in various places, including our rural villages, we must start talking about ending this criminality now before it further damages society.