YOLANDA WALSH, SOMERSET WEST
Thank you, Carolyn, for your article honouring Rico Pentz – “a young man with the heart of a lion”. I was incredibly saddened to hear of his death.
Rico must have rescued and re-homed hundreds if not thousands of animals in his short life. For our family alone he re-homed a puff adder; a cape cobra and attended to multiple call-outs for non-venomous snakes!
He was always educating us, and we have learnt to be awed, careful, but ‘ok’ with the venomous critters that share our garden with us.
After hearing about his death, I read through WhatsApp messages exchanged with him over the years – I’d forgotten how he had coached us to care for a young mousebird carried in by our cat, till he could collect it later that day. Smiling through tears as I remembered my sheer joy at seeing the young mousebird wolf down the mashed banana Rico had instructed me to give!
Rico gave of his expertise freely and with visible love and passion. His untimely passing is a real loss for the humans and animals in the greater Helderberg community.