Shar­lene Ram­per­sad

On Mon­day, a wan­der­ing rep­tile brought rush hour traf­fic to a halt along the South-bound lane of the Uri­ah But­ler High­way as it made its way across the high­way near the Ca­roni Swamp.

Luck­i­ly for the four-foot long caiman, traf­fic came to a stop and a mo­torist had to use un­usu­al meth­ods to coax the fright­ened rep­tile back to its nat­ur­al habi­tat.

The Uri­ah But­ler High­way sep­a­rates the marsh­land of Ca­roni Swamp.

A video post­ed on Face­book on Mon­day drew com­ments from sev­er­al mo­torists who com­plained about the fre­quen­cy of caimans cross­ing the road­way and dis­rupt­ing traf­fic in the Ca­roni area.

An of­fi­cer at the Ca­roni Po­lice Sta­tion said an­i­mal and rep­tile cross­ings were ram­pant in Ca­roni. These in­clude cows, hors­es, snakes and crabs.

Se­nior game war­den, Steve Seep­er­sad, said while the area where the caiman was seen was a nat­ur­al habi­tat for its kind, he be­lieved there was a way to keep them off the road­way.

He added: "These are wildlife and that area is a part of their nat­ur­al habi­tat but the re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion re­spon­si­ble for the area or even the Min­istry of Works can do some­thing about it.

"They can put up a wall or erect some kind of bar­ri­ca­tion to pre­vent them from com­ing out on the road­way.

"There is noth­ing else that can be done in re­spect of a nat­ur­al habi­tat like that. If you re­move them they will come back."

He is warn­ing en­thu­si­as­tic mem­bers of the pub­lic against ap­proach­ing the an­i­mals.

"It would be dan­ger­ous to try to re­move it, es­pe­cial­ly the fe­males which are very ag­gres­sive. In or­der for a caiman to bite some­one who is stand­ing, it has to turn side­ways. Then it will turn and snap at you, grab­bing your cloth­ing, and when you try to raise your foot they will grab your foot."

Un­like the caiman, a horse try­ing to cross the road­way along Ca­roni North Bank Road on Sun­day night was not so for­tu­nate.

It was hit by a ve­hi­cle, suf­fered a bro­ken leg and had to be put down.

"Of­fi­cials from the zoo were con­tact­ed and they put the an­i­mal to sleep be­cause it was a full grown horse and to ap­proach it would have been very risky. When an an­i­mal is in dis­tress like that it can kick out at un­sus­pect­ing peo­ple," Seep­er­sad said,

He said in cas­es like those, where a wan­der­ing an­i­mal was hit by a ve­hi­cle the own­er rarely came for­ward.

"They can be charged for fail­ing to cor­ral their live­stocks and for that rea­son many peo­ple do not come for­ward to claim their an­i­mals," Seep­er­sad said.

The T&T Guardian was told the dead horse was butchered and shared among passers­by who stopped near the site.

'Be more vig­i­lant'

???Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day for com­ment, co-or­di­na­tor of the TTPS Strate­gic Road Safe­ty Project, of­fi­cer Brent Bat­son, ad­vised dri­vers to be more vig­i­lant on the roads at night.

"Most in­ci­dents where dri­vers hit an­i­mals oc­cur at night. One of the biggest chal­lenges dri­vers have, while we might look out for pedes­tri­ans and cy­clists, is to look out for an­i­mals when dri­ving through rur­al ar­eas. You can't let your guard down at any time," Bat­son said.

He al­so warned dri­vers against 'over­driv­ing' their head­lights.

"What this means, is that if you are us­ing low beams and they are show­ing you 100 feet in front and you are dri­ving at 80 miles per hour, by the time you see an an­i­mal, you might have all of 20 feet left be­fore you hit it.

"It is ad­vis­able to use your high beams in rur­al ar­eas, un­less there is a ve­hi­cle com­ing from the oth­er side," he said.