Another washed up animal mystery
|Published
ODD: A porcupine was found dead at Melkbosstrand.
Just days after an aardvark washed up on Cape shores, yet another unlikely animal was spotted lifeless on a city beach, this time a porcupine.
Details of how and why the porcupine ended up at Melkbosstrand on Tuesday are not yet known, but Marisol Gutierrez from the Cape of Good Hope SPCA said a post-mortem will be performed to find the cause of death.
“The carcass was handed over to the SPCA for a post-mortem. We are waiting for the results,” she said.
“It is out of the ordinary to see wild mammals washing up on shores. We cannot speculate on the reason for this and will avoid speculation until we have all the facts.”
The news of the porcupine surfaced a week after mense at Sunset Beach in Milnerton were shocked when an aardvark washed up.
The SPCA confirmed that the adult female aardvark suffered heart failure and had fluid on the lungs while it showed no signs of external trauma.
“Some fluid on the lungs would indicate shock lung; which is a state most often caused by suffocation [such as being kept in a box with no ventilation might induce].”
The SPCA said aardvarks were a seldom-seen animal in the Western Cape, and although there is a small population living on the city’s outskirts. One would be lucky to see them as they are mostly shy, nocturnal animals.
“The conclusion is that the aardvark was already dead by the time it went into the water, either having been dumped overboard a ship close to shore or was somehow put into the sea from land,“ the SPCA stated.
In December, Capetonians were left geskok when a Cape Fur seal was found roaming along Jakes Gerwel Drive. The animal was caught and returned to its habitat.