The Owls and the BEE Certificate – a Rescue Mission that Almost Faltered
Last week the Owl Rescue Centre in South Africa received a call from a large corporate company, asking founder Brendan Murray to come and remove three or four owls from one of their factories. But it wasn’t that simple. In a social media post that has gone viral, Brendan explained how he asked the lady, Amanda, why […]
Last week the Owl Rescue Centre in South Africa received a call from a large corporate company, asking founder Brendan Murray to come and remove three or four owls from one of their factories. But it wasn’t that simple.
In a social media post that has gone viral, Brendan explained how he asked the lady, Amanda, why the owls couldn’t remain on the premise.
“Amanda explains that the factory staff are frightened of the owls and don’t want to work until they are removed, and it’s costing the company a lot of money!
“‘Amanda I say, I shall be there in the next couple of days, and I will do a short education course with your staff on the benefit of having owls, and if I alleviate their fears and they don’t mind the owls staying on… then my job is done; if not… then I shall relocate the owls for you.’
“Amanda replies that they don’t want the education course – ‘just take the owls away; what would that cost?’
“It won’t cost anything I reply, it’s a free service, we are a non profit out to save owls, but we do accept donations, gladly.
“Amanda says, ‘sorry we don’t donate to animal welfares, only social welfare organisations.’
“‘Well,’ I say, ‘that is perfectly fine, that is the stance of many corporates and fully understandable, I shall be there within 48 hours to relocate your owls.’
“Two hours later, Amanda calls back… ‘Brendan’ she says, ‘can I have a copy of your BEE certificate.’
“‘A BEE certificate? I don’t have one’ I say, to which Amanda says ‘but why not??’
“‘Well Amanda, myself and my wife run a small non profit to the benefit of owls, we save hundreds every year from persecution, from car collisions, rat poison, electrocution and many other factors. What would be the relevance?’ And then I add, ‘don’t forget, as you mentioned earlier, your company does not support animal welfare, and that’s exactly what we do, so how can we further help to uplift society too?’
“Amanda then says ‘sorry, but you cannot come save our owls if you don’t have a BEE certificate’.
“To which I replied: ‘I do believe the irony of this situation is lost on you Amanda and I truly believe that this world has gone absolutely mad!'”
Brendan’s post received a barrage of feedback from outraged animal lovers and people calling for the company to be named and shamed… but that wasn’t Brendan’s purpose.
Two days later he was able to update with this message: “Thanks for the support guys, I managed to get hold of someone in senior management and directed them to this Facebook page.. Seems they misunderstood their own policy, and now we can save the owls on Tuesday… All’s well that ends well.”
And all has ended well.
Brendan told SAPeople that they managed to successfully capture the owls yesterday, and have relocated them to one of their release aviaries (hacks).
“The Barn owls will be inside the release hack for a few weeks to get them used to the new area. They are then ‘soft released’ and support fed to aid them in their adjustment,” he says.
The Owl Rescue Centre was founded by Brendan after a lifelong interest and passion for birds of prey, and an urgent need to protect them from becoming endangered. The Centre is dedicated to protecting all owl species in Southern Africa, and is involved in several conservation projects to decrease their high mortality rate.
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