The Sunday News
SIGNIFICANT rains were received during this past week in some parts of the country.
This was no doubt good news to farmers especially livestock farmers as it means the veld will experience fresh growth earlier than usual and in some areas water bodies collected some water for livestock drinking.
Even the trees will shoot earlier and faster due to the received rains and animals can start browsing on the new shoots and survive the devastating drought that has already claimed a lot of animals across the drier southern region of the country.
While the rains bring obvious relief and joy to the livestock farmers, it must be noted that they can also bring anguish to the farmer if special attention is not given to animals.
As the veld shoots new grass, your animals will traverse large areas nibbling at the shooting grass and easily stray in the process. It is common for farmers to discover that their animals are now mixing from the veld especially from their usual place of grazing as animals wander along the veld taking small bites at the small shooting grass. These rains also bring a different kind of nightmare for farmers whose settlements are closer to the highways.
We will record high numbers of livestock by vehicles on the tarmac as animals go in their numbers to graze fresh grass shooting on the edges of the tarmac. The grass grows fast on the edges of the tarmac because of the aggregation factor of the concrete tar with regards to rainfall.
The tarmac will collect all the rainfall droplets and spill the collection as a substantial amount by the edge of the road. This means the roadside edges will have received more rains that the other areas of the veld and hence the grass will grow much faster there, attracting animals in their numbers.
This is then aggravated by the less attentive and less caring driver who feels because he is driving a big haulage truck, he has the right to side swipe the animals with his trailer and leave them dead while he continues with his journey.
I know that the counter argument is that farmers should not let their animals stray on to our highways. It is their responsibility to ensure that their animals stay away from the highways. This is by all means a fair argument but it neglects the fact that every driver is called upon by the law to drive “with due care and attention.”
If anything that strays on to our roads have to be run over simply because it was not supposed to be there in the first place, then we could be picking bodies of schoolchildren every day as these have a penchant of playing along our highways and in most cases quite oblivious of the danger that might befall them.
My point is, the same caution with which drivers approach schoolchildren jaywalking on our highways should be the same caution they apply around our livestock.
It is absolutely unfair that one just runs over five animals and leave the owner of the investment crippled because his or her animals strayed onto the tarmac.
This is by no way a condonation of stray animals on our highways but a call for our drivers to have a heart and feel for the farmer who could be traversing the whole bush looking for his animals not even aware that they are grazing along the highway.
I know that this line of thought will touch nerves with some readers who will tell me that “lives have been lost on our highways because of stray livestock”, conveniently neglecting the fact that a safe speed could have saved both lives and property.
My plea with road users especially in the known cattle country which is likely to be infested with animals grazing along the edges of the highway, is to be patient with the animals and to exercise caution so as to save both property and lives.
It’s only a matter of few weeks and when the grass grows in the veld, animals will disappear from the roadside edges. Uyabonga umntakaMaKhumalo.
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