Tuliphants to remain in NSPCA custody

December 22 1999 at 07:37PM

The National Council of SPCAs fought off a court bid on Wednesday to have the remaining five Tuli elephants still being held at Riccardo Ghiazza's African Game Services (AGS) facility, removed from their custody. 

The Brits Magistrate's Court last year gave the NSPCA custody of the elephants, after allegations of cruelty were levelled against Ghiazza and some AGS employees. 

NSPCA monitors have been with the elephants at the AGS facility since the furore began. 

But in an urgent application lodged this week in the Brits Magistrate's Court, custody was removed from the NSPCA and given to the Animal Anti-Cruelty League. 

Rozanne Savory of the NSPCA said the Brits court order came days before the elephants were to be moved to the Marakele National Park, where nine of the Tuli elephants were moved in the past. 

"Everything was in place - an NSPCA donor had agreed to buy the elephants from Craig Saunders, who bought them from AGS. 

"All we were waiting for was a signature and the elephants would have been on their way to the Marakele National Park (outside Thabazimbi in Northern Province)." 

The NSPCA believes the Brits application was an attempt to prevent them moving the elephants from Ghiazza. 

But the NSPCA on Wednesday succeeded in having the Brits court order overturned in the Supreme Court in Pretoria. 

The Brits application had been brought by an organisation calling itself Grow (Generating Real Optimum Wealth) acting on behalf of the Knysna Elephant Park, Savory said, and their intention was to move the five Tuli elephants to the Eastern Cape. The NSPCA would prefer to have them released back into the wild at Marakele. 

"The option we put forward was a permanent solution, whereas the option put forward in Grow's court application would have been only a temporary move," she said. 

Plans to move the five to Marakele have been reinstated and the move is expected to take place by the weekend.
 - Staff Reporter (The Star IOL)