'They were loved and cared for': Goats and sheep stolen from Pretoria NGO

It seems not even animals at a welfare sanctuary are safe from criminals.

The founder of Animal Ambulance, a non-profit organisation in Pretoria, said she was heartbroken after a break-in at the shelter saw seven goats and seven sheep stolen on Thursday morning.   

Mariah Conradie, along with six regular staff members, takes care of more than 400 animals, including donkeys, cats, chickens and guinea pigs. The animals are either ill or have been abused, and Animal Ambulance offers them a place to live and then die happily from natural causes.

“When they came here I had promised to take care of them until old age, promised them a beautiful life... but I can’t do that anymore,” said Conradie.

“Each morning they had a ginger cookie and they had fruit and vegetables in the afternoon. They were well fed. They were loved,” she said, her voice trembling.

The 14 animals were taken after criminals cut windows out of a wall and removed burglar guards from the enclosure in which they were kept.  

Conradie described the perpetrators as people who knew exactly what they were doing, saying they did their dirty deed at the back of the property, seemingly knowing that the front area had an alarm. .

“It’s people who knew that there was no siren at the back,” she said. 

While the animals had been missing for less than 48 hours, Conradie said she was worried about the condition they were in.

“I hope they are not badly treated or traumatised. They must be scared where they are because they were well taken care of here. We brushed them daily and bathed them weekly,” she said.

Conradie said although a case had been opened with police, it was difficult to come to terms with the possibility of not seeing the missing livestock. She has pleaded for assistance in retrieving the animals.

“If people have seen or heard something, please may they give me a call. It doesn’t matter where they are. I can even drive to Cape Town, just for their safe return,” she said.

The stolen goats and sheep had been at the shelter for at least five years. They were being rehabilitated and kept to die humanely, not for production nor commercial reasons.

“It took us so much time to rehabilitate them and get them to love people again, because they had previously been abused by people, and now that they had adjusted and loved people, people do this to them? It is really unfair,” she said.

Meanwhile, a 59-year-old man was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment in the Bronkhorstspruit Magistrate’s Court on Thursday after he pleaded guilty  to possession of stolen livestock.

Police spokesperson Sergeant Tsietsi Lamola said the state accepted Jabulani Maxwell Sebeko’s plea and ordered him to compensate the claimant for the loss incurred.

Sibeko’s sentence includes a condition that he not be found guilty or commit the same offence for five years. He was also declared unfit to possess a firearm, said Lamola.

Lamola earlier said that the Crime Prevention Unit arrested a man with a bakkie-load of cow meat last month.