Wild Talk with Animal Welfare Society

The Animal Welfare Society of South Africa, colloquially known as AWS Philippi, was established in 1929. Since its inception 95 years ago it has never turned any animal in need away and this includes wildlife.

A lessor known fact is that in 1993 we admitted and successfully reared an orphaned two day old Zebra Colt named Paul who fathered the first Quagga foal in 1998!

Over the years we have rescued, rehabilitated and released an interesting array of wild animals and forged meaningful partnerships with other rescue organisations, statutory and conservation bodies such as CapeNature and the City of Cape Town.

We believe that wild animals belong in the wild and are opposed to trophy hunting, the keeping of wild animals in captivity, circuses and other traveling wild animal menageries.

Our Incident Response Team is comprised of suitably trained and International Wildlife Rehabilitation and South African Veterinary Council accredited Inspectors and veterinary personnel who are equipped to deal with most disasters and render informed in-situ treatment.

We are very mindful of the need to repatriate wild animals as quickly as possible so as to prevent them from becoming habituated or even domesticated.

All wildlife releases are done in collaboration with our colleagues at CapeNature especially when it comes to animals of unknown origin or those that are not endemic to our vast area of operation.

We are fiercely proud of all of our wild animal accomplishments and grateful to our Executive Committee for allowing us to invest in the further training and development of our staff especially given that we have a National Park that is home to a wide variety of wild animals on our doorstep and a huge coastline. We are particularly grateful to Michelle Watson, internationally certified wildlife rehabilitator, educator, and founder of Wildlife Rescue SA for taking us under her wing.

Animal Welfare Society South Africa are one of an ever diminishing number of animal welfare organisations that is open 24/7 year-round. Anyone in need of their help should please call (021) 692 2626 during office hours or 082 601 1761 after hours or e mail their Control Room inspectorate@awscape.org.za