The Bloemfontein SPCA found more than 70 illegally-kept wild animals in the house of Marius Joubert from Hennenman.
Joubert was scheduled to appear in the Hennenman Magistrates’ Court on Friday, 5 April, on counts of house burglary and theft.
Over the Easter weekend, he was accompanying police members to his house to point out more evidence when they took off his handcuffs.
He then stuck his hands in snake cages in his house and was bitten by venomous snakes.
Joubert eventually succumbed to these snake bites in the Bongani Hospital in Welkom.
Reinet Meyer, chief inspector at the Bloemfontein SPCA, said they received an appeal for assistance from the local conservation authority concerning a large number of illegally kept indigenous and exotic animals which were slowly starving to death in Joubert’s house.
Upon the SPCA team’s arrival at the house they found a number of animals had already succumbed to starvation and dehydration, but that over 60 animals were still alive and would need rescuing.
All the animals in Joubert’s house were carefully caught and crated, and taken to the Johannesburg Wildlife Veterinary Hospital for emergency treatment.
