Kris­tel Marie Ram­nath

Our ho­minid an­ces­tors were thought to be fru­giv­o­rous (fruit-eat­ing) or om­niv­o­rous (plant-eat­ing) but were prob­a­bly al­so scav­engers of the kills of larg­er preda­tors. With the emer­gence of the Ho­mo genus (ear­ly hu­mans) came the pro­duc­tion of stone tools and the con­trol of fire, equip­ping hu­mans with weapons to hunt an­i­mals of their own ac­cord. With the es­tab­lish­ment of lan­guage, cul­ture and re­li­gion, hunt­ing be­came the ba­sis of many sto­ries and myths, as well as rit­u­als such as dance and an­i­mal sac­ri­fice.

Be­fore the dawn of agri­cul­ture about 11,000 years ago, hunt­ing was a cru­cial com­po­nent of hunter-gath­er­er so­ci­eties, and strate­gies be­came di­ver­si­fied with the de­vel­op­ment of the bow-and-ar­row 18,000 years ago and the do­mes­ti­ca­tion of the dog 15,000 years ago. The sup­ple­men­tary meat and ma­te­ri­als from hunt­ing in­clud­ed pro­tein, bone for im­ple­ments, sinew for cordage, fur, feath­ers, rawhide and leather used in cloth­ing.

An­i­mal flesh re­mains an im­por­tant com­po­nent of mod­ern man's di­et: whether the meat is ob­tained by farm­ing do­mes­ti­cat­ed an­i­mals such as chick­ens, cows, sheep and goats; or is caught in the wild. (Fish are al­so wild-caught or farmed but fish­ing is not cat­e­gorised as a form of hunt­ing).

De­spite the preva­lence of agri­cul­ture and an­i­mal hus­bandry, hunt­ing re­mains part of the cul­ture of T&T, but has changed from a sub­sis­tence ac­tiv­i­ty to a so­cial one, for the most part. This in­cludes the pur­suit and killing of live an­i­mals (usu­al­ly wildlife) for recre­ation and trade; as well as the elim­i­na­tion of ver­min as a means of pest-con­trol. Law­ful hunt­ing, how­ev­er, should be dis­tin­guished from poach­ing, which is the killing, trap­ping or cap­ture of the hunt­ed species con­trary to ap­plic­a­ble law.

The Con­ser­va­tion of Wild Life Act, 1958 is the cur­rent leg­is­la­tion reg­u­lat­ing hunt­ing in T&T. Full de­tails of this act can be ac­cessed on the Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs Web site.

"Hunt" is de­fined as "killing, wound­ing, pur­su­ing, cap­tur­ing or mo­lest­ing by any method, any an­i­mal, and al­so at­tempt­ing to do any of such things; and in­cludes any act im­me­di­ate­ly di­rect­ed at the killing or cap­ture of any an­i­mal".

The cur­rent leg­is­la­tion for T&T does not in­clude con­trol mea­sures such as bag lim­its, pro­hi­bi­tion of hunt­ing tech­niques that are non-se­lec­tive, gear re­stric­tions, or reg­u­la­tion of the num­ber of hunt­ing per­mits is­sued for in­di­vid­ual species.

In ad­di­tion, fac­tors that im­pact just as se­vere­ly on an an­i­mal pop­u­la­tion as un­sus­tain­able hunt­ing are giv­en lit­tle or no con­sid­er­a­tion. For ex­am­ple, land giv­en over to quar­ry­ing, farm­ing, or for res­i­den­tial pur­pos­es de­stroys the nat­ur­al habi­tat of the flo­ra and fau­na. Bush fires set de­lib­er­ate­ly by cit­i­zens of T&T for slash-and-burn agri­cul­ture, for flush­ing out an­i­mals to hunt, or sim­ply through ma­li­cious or fool­hardy in­tent re­sult in strip­ping the land. De­for­esta­tion is a se­ri­ous prob­lem in T&T.

De­spite the in­state­ment of lit­ter war­dens, our coun­try re­mains heav­i­ly pol­lut­ed–filthy habi­tats and clogged wa­ter­ways can no longer pro­vide homes for an­i­mals.

An­i­mals list­ed as pests or ver­min in 1958 may no longer be clas­si­fied as such 55 years lat­er, and per­haps dif­fer­ent species should be added to that list. Wel­fare leg­is­la­tion to ad­dress con­cerns re­lat­ing to the use and care of hunt­ing dogs, and to the con­di­tions un­der which wildlife are farmed for com­mer­cial meat, re­mains elu­sive. The chal­lenges posed by alien in­va­sive species and the in­ter­na­tion­al wildlife trade are al­so not ad­e­quate­ly ad­dressed, and with the emer­gence of new and dan­ger­ous strains of virus­es and bac­te­ria, zoonot­ic dis­eases such as avian in­fluen­za and swine-flu con­tin­ue to pose threats to hu­man health.

The man­age­ment of wildlife in T&T is al­so reg­u­lat­ed through the en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly sen­si­tive species and ar­eas rules of the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Act, 2000 but there re­mains no pol­i­cy in­te­grat­ing laws con­trol­ling all as­pects of the coun­try's wildlife re­sources.

�2 In my next ar­ti­cle we will dis­cuss the Na­tion­al Wildlife Pol­i­cy that has been draft­ed in re­sponse to this dis­con­nect and look at some rec­om­men­da­tions to en­sure that the new leg­is­la­tion ac­tu­al­ly works.

?