Animal Welfare in the Spotlight
Over the last week, there have been two breaking news stories that have caused shock waves to ripple through the animal welfare community.
Many animal rescue and welfare workers received a picture (click to view) of a document in their email inboxes early this week, announcing that Tracy Forte of Wetnose had been ‘fired’ which is not strictly speaking true. She has been suspended with full pay pending investigations into certain allegations. As we know more we will keep everyone informed.
A colleague of mine observed:
“The article is an image of a word or PDF document, not a newspaper clipping. The mail address this was sent from is a gmail address and if I remember correctly, almost all the community papers are printed by Caxton and do not use gmail addresses. The image in the bottom right corner also looks similar to the AWFIG logo of the previous ‘newsletter’ sent out.”
In addition, the organisation it was sent from, the ‘community (sic) newsgauteng’ does not exist. I sent an email to the originating address asking for clarity and their source, and have yet to get a reply. Makes me wonder how legitimate these people are. To add to our suspicions, Marius Herselman, a member of the new board at Wetnose, in referring to the email stating that Tracy had been suspended because of a number of allegations and a large sum of money, said that he had “no idea where that came from”…
Whatever the case may be, I have worked with Tracy for many years, and cannot remember a single instance in which I found her behaviour to be questionable in any respect. She has been a champion of abandoned and abused animals for a long time, and while I recognise that it’s possible that certain events may have been hidden from us, I am not ready to conduct a ‘trial by media’. If I remember correctly, in our Constitution, anyone is innocent until proven guilty, and I will support Tracy until such time as I have incontrovertible proof that she is guilty of wrongdoing.
The second alarming news item was the criminal charge laid against the Manager of the East London SPCA, Lionel Taylor:
http://deadwelfare.wordpress.com
While I have never met Lionel Taylor, this is a serious allegation, and it is of deep concern that according to the affidavit, the NSPCA allegedly did nothing after being informed of this event.
At the same time, it is important to recognise that Mr. Taylor has the same rights as anyone else, and that the court must prove that he committed these acts of cruelty. We should not find him guilty because someone claims he is.
It is however interesting that the NSPCA response was to ‘poison the well’ by discrediting the person who signed the affidavit and laid the charge. This is a standard response by the NSPCA and does not mention that there were TWO witnesses, one of which signed the affidavit.
In addition, posts last night from Marlene Emslie suggest that Lionel has admitted that the euthanasia took place, with modification to a few details.
Once again, we must let the courts decide, and suspend our own judgement until such time as the truth has been established.
We at Hopeful believe that it is important, where there has been behaviour, whether by organisations or individuals, that constitutes neglect or cruelty to animals, that there should be a place you can go to where you will be heard, and your confidentiality will be respected. Please email me at derek@hopeful.ws or fax 0866417608 if you know of or have witnessed events that you believe were either negligent or cruel. We have a strong legal team, a wealth of experience in these matters, and a growing network of extremely capable and committed people.
A Light in their Darkness,
Derek
The Hopeful Initiative
In the High Court of Pretoria on Wednesday 11th August Justice Anri Louw presided at an urgent High Court hearing to overturn resolutions taken at a meeting of the Board of the Wet Nose Animal Rescue Centre (WNARC) on 21st July. Evidence was led that the special board meeting had been illegally called and constituted, thus ultra virus and was not conducted according to the Constitution and Articles of the Association when a resolution was taken, in her absence, to suspend Tracy Forté. Justice Louw struck the matter from the role, with costs, as he did not consider the matter of sufficient urgency to warrant a special hearing. The matter will be placed on the roll again next Tuesday the 17th August.
The suspension comes in the wake of a defamatory e-mail about Ms. Forté doing the rounds and is thought to be the work of the same group of people who, last year, posted a similar e-mail purporting to come from a Fraud Investigation Agency. The latest e-mail was in the form of a purported newspaper article.
According to Forté the suspension came as a surprise as, weeks earlier, the board had taken a vote of full confidence in her. This vote was apparently overturned by irregularly co-opting members onto the board at a subsequent meeting.
Says Ms. Forté: “Somebody is out to destroy Wetnose and these emails come around at regular intervals, usually just as we are planning a major fundraising event. Unfortunately, in the end, it’s the animals that suffer.”
Ms. Forté is known to have made several enemies over the years when she obtained the prosecution of animal abusers.
Dr. Lewellyn Curlewis of the law firm Pieterse and Curlewis and Advocate James Mollentze acted on behalf of Tracy Forté.
Hello Derek
Nice to know there are people like you there.
I wanted to put my name forward for any petition starting and had a whole bunch of names added to mine, so people are supportive of this being sorted out properly.
When once a proper petition has been formulated these names can be added. Do you want me to send them to you as I receive them or wait till the petition has been made up?
Best wishes,
Dawn Connell
Thanks for keeping us updated.