CAPE TIMES (Cape Town, S Africa) 02 March 07 Croc park loses court bid (Fatima Schroeder)
The George Crocodile Park has been refused leave to appeal against a court ruling preventing it from creating a public nuisance by failing to dispose of decaying carcasses on the premises.
The Cape High Court, sitting in George, said it would not condone the park's late application for leave to appeal.
The crocodile park is at the lower end of York Street in George, a residential area, and breeds crocodiles for commercial purposes.
The reptile are fed animal carcasses and other animal waste.
The park regularly disposes of the carcasses and waste material on a site provided by the municipality at the animal burial site.
It had arranged with the municipality to notify the chief of cleansing services to ensure the waste was properly covered.
But the municipality said the park did not dispose of the waste in the prescribed way.
It also said the park did not contact the chief of cleansing services several times when dumping carcasses.
The chief of environmental health of the Eden District Municipality said he had visited the site in August 2005 and saw people scavenging around the decaying carcasses.
The following month, he saw a pile of animal waste there, including horse heads, crocodiles, a goat and intestines. The municipality also alleged that the activities conducted at the park constituted a public nuisance.
Bad smells came from the park and there was also an unacceptable number of flies.
The municipality investigated several complaints by residents in the area and discovered the park premises has an area where animals were slaughtered. This was infested with flies and unhygienic.
The park was asked not to accept animals which have been dead for more than 24 hours and to build bigger coolers to prevent the meat from rotting.
In a judgment handed down in June 2006, Judge Hennie Erasmus found this constituted a public nuisance.
He also said the park was well aware of what it needed to do when disposing of animal waste material.
He granted an interdict against the park, preventing it from dumping material on the site without notice and restraining it form creating a public nuisance.
But the park wanted to appeal against the judgment and its director, Heribert Seyer said in an affidavit he had only received a copy of the judgment a month after it had been handed down.
He was unable to consult with his attorney for two weeks due to an injury and only instructed his attorney to apply for leave to appeal on July 21 last year.
By then his time for such an application had run out.
But George municipal manager Cecil Africa said these reasons were not sufficient.
Judge Erasmus dismissed the application.
Croc park loses court bid