People walking along Dr Jacob Zuma Drive on Sunday morning were drawn in horror to the shocking sight of dogs scavenging on the bodies of a beheaded donkey and an unborn foal lying lifeless near its mother, her stomach ripped open by a car's impact.
People walking along Dr Jacob Zuma Drive on Sunday morning were drawn in horror to the shocking sight of dogs scavenging on the bodies of a beheaded donkey and an unborn foal lying lifeless near its mother, her stomach ripped open by a car's impact.
They were among five donkeys hit and killed by drag-racers in the early hours of Sunday. Residents in the area told Grocott's Mail they had been awoken by a loud noise around 4am on Sunday.
One, who asked not to be named, said she'd been asleep when she heard the crash. "I thought a car had hit a house and I looked through the window and realised they had hit donkeys," she said.
She said the car that hit the donkeys was so badly damaged that smoke was coming out from under the bonnet and the windscreen was shattered. "There were three people in the car that hit the donkeys and one of them was bleeding on the mouth," she said.
"The police and the SPCA had arrived at the scene shortly after," she said. Another resident, Lindile Mambarha, told Grocott's Mail he had gone outside to see what was happening when he heard the noise.
"When I walked out I saw the police talking to the driver of the car," he said. Mambarha said one of the cars had veered off the road and on to the pavement.
Mambarha said one of the car's three occupants had been taken away by ambulance. It had been a shocking sight, he said. "Owners of the donkeys need to look after their animals because this is really bad," he said.
Police spokesperson Captain Mali Govender said a case of reckless and negligent driving had been opened, but no arrests had been made. Two cars were driving up Dr Jacob Zuma drive at about 4am, Govender said.
"They were allegedly racing each other when one of the cars drove into four donkeys," Govender said in a statement yesterday.
The SPCA team were distressed by the incident. SPCA Animal Welfare Assistance and Inspector Monwabisi Dingana told Grocott's Mail that all the donkeys were already dead when he arrived. "We moved the donkeys to the side of the road."
"One donkey's head lay about 120 metres from its body," he said. He said as someone who works with animals, it was a sad sight to see. Even those at the scene had been horrified at the carnage.
He said donkey owners needed to do a better job of taking care of their donkeys. "If the owners took care of their donkeys they wouldn't have been on the street at that time," he said.
Another donkey that was hit by a car in White Street on Wednesday last week had to be shot because it was so badly injured, Dingana said. By 8am on Sunday, dogs had already started scavenging on the donkeys' carcasses.
