Well-known retired veterinarian, Dr Annelize Roos, is on a mission to ensure that “massive” cat and dog populations are kept in check through a mass sterilisation project underway in Port Alfred.
With more than 35 years’ experience under her belt in private practice, Roos assisted by Dr Maryke Thomas, arrived in the town to roll out the mass sterilisation drive for the entire week until tomorrow, Friday November 22. Sponsored by an NPO – National Sterilisation Project (NSP) – in conjunction with Dancers Love Dogs and Let’s Spay SA, the project is aimed at lowering burgeoning animal populations in mainly low income areas through mass sterilisations.
It was project initiator, Port Alfred Ratepayers’ and Residents Association, (Parra) seeing the need to keep the animal population in check, stumbled upon Roos’s project with the NSP and set the wheels in motion, earlier this year.
The Port Alfred programme’s first phase was earmarked to target 350 cats only but because only 200 cats could be traced or located, Roos agreed to sterilise an extra 150 dogs to make up the required number. Roos, since starting Envirovet CVC, has conducted 86,000 sterilisations across South Africa with help from her team.
The experienced vet is using the Ndlambe SPCA’s premises as a base to carry out NSP’s sterilisation programme which is the first of six phases of the project earmarked for Port Alfred scheduled to end in April 2026. According to NSP’s national project coordinator, Debra Buys, the aim is to have 2,300 animals sterilised in the area, which, according to their research, is 80% of the dog and cat population
“NSP’s aim is to reduce the number of unwanted and neglected animals that live a life of misery on our streets and to bring down the staggering number of more than one million animals that are euthanised in SA every year,” said Buys.
Talk of the Town arrived at the SPCA just as Roos was inundated with dogs and cats being picked up by Sandy Okkers of Cape-Town based the People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals. Every dog and cat is meticulously documented in SPCA’s computer records when brought in.
“The best way to prevent suffering and cruelty to animals is to prevent population explosion,” says Roos. “We sterilise the animals … but it’s no use going to an area where there’s for example 500 animals and you only sterilise 50. You have to get to a percentage of at least 80%.”
Roos says the NSP has identified 2,600 indigent areas in South Africa – and the network she has forged with private and state vets and local welfare organisations, is yielding much better results.
“We try to sterilise all the cats first and then we go to the dogs,” she says. But cats aren’t easy to pin down at all as they are mostly nocturnal. We aim to initially sterilise half the cat population and we use the human population figures from SA stats (to determine numbers).”
To be effective, Roos says she has to sterilise 80% of a specific species in a six-month period.
“So we need to come back in a six-month period and do the rest of the cats and then only will the cat population be under control. Cats can produce up to four litters a year. Then we come back and start with the dogs. There is invariably twice as many dogs as there are cats in any given area according to the measurements used.”
Roos says continuity is important as it concerns the mass sterilisations. “I only focus on value-driven outcomes even if they take time – and not quick-fixes.”
“We make sure that in every area there is a group of people or organisations who will maintain the project once I have left. It doesn’t mean that, if you let’s say, sterilise 80% of the animals now, in five years’s time it’ll be the same. It has to be an ongoing project otherwise it’s a waste of resources.”
She says the relationship with PA SPCA and animal organisations around the country has been “absolutely brilliant”.
“I’m very grateful that there is a reliable inspiring group of people here (at PA SPCA) who are going to maintain the programme. Of course, I advise them what to do; we have to make sure there is a structure in place to honour our project.”
Lindsay Luppnow, Parra’s exco member and its former chair, said Parra was excited by NSP and Roos’s initiative.
“It was incredibly exciting when we were put in to contact with Dr Roos who found out about Port Alfred from one of our residents and she was prepared to do a sterilisation drive in our area. Never did we think it would be such an extensive project,” said Luppnow.
“Parra is incredibly grateful to the NPS, Dr Roos and her team and Ndlambe SPCA for all the hard work they have put in to this project. This will have a huge impact on our communities and population of animals in these areas.”
SPCA’s admin assistant, Forbes Coutts, says the overpopulation of animals puts a strain on already stretched resources.
“This project to reduce births and unwanted (animal) pregnancies is important because the problem is massive. Dogs are roaming the streets and the cats are all over the place. This leads to a lot of unwanted litters of puppies and cats that end up unwanted and surrendered to our SPCA here.
“The SPCA has its own ongoing sterilisation project where we average about 10 to 15 sterilisations a week but that is just scratching the surface; the NSP project is sterilising 350 animals in one week pushing us over a break-even kind of level. Remember, each of these animals can have a litter twice or three times a year.”
- This article was first published in Talk of the Town, November 21, 2024. The newspaper serving the communities of Ndlambe and the Sunshine Coast, with a weekly wrap of Makhanda news, is available at stores from early on Thursdays.
