A petition to ban or at least to severely limit ownership of pit bulls garnered close to 139 000 signatures. It was handed over to Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development Minister, Thoko Didiza.
This was done by the Sizwe Kupelo Foundation in a meeting with the minister last week. It comes in the wake of the death of 88-year-old Olga Grill in Bonteheuvel in the Western Cape, who was mauled to death by her neighbour’s pit bulls.
The Foundation referred to “years of vicious attacks on innocent citizens”. The Foundation called for research into the animals’ DNA, and said that the claim that its aggression depended on the individual animal’s socialisation did not ‘hold water’.
It called for a ban on the ownership of pit bulls as a domestic animal. A number of countries, including the United Kingdom and Portugal, have imposed strict limitations on ownership of the breed.