As the heat­wave stretch­es in­to an un­ex­pect­ed ex­ten­sion to the end of Oc­to­ber, con­cerns are grow­ing for the wel­fare of pets and wildlife. 

With the hunt­ing sea­son open, calls are be­ing made for the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture to ban hunt­ing be­cause of the sus­cep­ti­bil­i­ty of wild an­i­mals to heat-re­lat­ed ill­ness­es.

In­grid Ali, man­ag­er of Na­ture’s World Pet Store in San Fer­nan­do, stressed the im­por­tance of pet own­ers tak­ing ex­tra pre­cau­tions to en­sure the safe­ty of their beloved an­i­mals dur­ing the heat.

“You need to keep the an­i­mals prop­er­ly hy­drat­ed and boost them up with prop­er vi­t­a­mins and min­er­als,” she ad­vised.

Ali stressed the need to spray pets at least three times a day to help them stay cool and adding ice to their wa­ter dur­ing peak heat hours.

While vet­eri­nar­i­ans an­tic­i­pate a surge in cas­es of heat-re­lat­ed ill­ness­es in pets, in­clud­ing heat­stroke and de­hy­dra­tion, Ali said such in­ci­dents can be avoid­ed if own­ers re­main vig­i­lant and at­ten­tive to their pets’ needs.

“You need to keep the an­i­mals prop­er­ly hy­drat­ed and boost them up with prop­er vi­t­a­mins and min­er­als,” she ex­plained.

Vice pres­i­dent of An­i­mals Alive Jow­elle De Souza said an­i­mals re­ly on hu­mans to keep them safe, hy­drat­ed, and cool in ex­treme weath­er con­di­tions. She rec­om­mend­ed a con­stant sup­ply of fresh, clean wa­ter and ad­vised against en­gag­ing pets in stren­u­ous ex­er­cise dur­ing the hottest parts of the day.

De Souza al­so ex­pressed con­cern for wildlife, high­light­ing the detri­men­tal ef­fects of the in­tense heat on lo­cal ecosys­tems and the crea­tures in­hab­it­ing them. 

“Our na­tive wildlife, from birds to rep­tiles, are strug­gling to find food and wa­ter sources,” she said.

She al­so re­vealed her reser­va­tions about hunt­ing ac­tiv­i­ties, em­pha­siz­ing that the gov­ern­ment should con­sid­er the on­go­ing heat­wave and its po­ten­tial con­se­quences for wildlife. She called for mea­sures to pro­tect and pre­serve the na­tion’s di­verse wildlife in light of the hot spell.

“We have been wor­ried the en­tire month, a lot of peo­ple have been tak­ing care of dogs and cats but with wild an­i­mals and fish­es, a lot of fish­es are dy­ing. A lot of Koi com­pa­nies are re­port­ing that their fish­es are dy­ing be­cause the tem­per­a­tures are phe­nom­e­nal,” she said.

De Souza ex­plained that con­cerns for wildlife have in­ten­si­fied as re­ports of an­i­mals in dis­tress have in­creased. 

She said that her or­gan­i­sa­tion, An­i­mals Alive, has re­ceived nu­mer­ous calls about an­i­mals in need. To ad­dress these chal­lenges, she out­lined plans to mo­bilise teams for pub­lic aware­ness cam­paigns. 

“We will be get­ting groups to­geth­er and telling peo­ple what needs to be done,” De Souza said.

She al­so called on the pub­lic to re­port in­ci­dents of an­i­mal abuse to An­i­mals Alive, stress­ing the im­por­tance of com­mu­ni­ty in­volve­ment to en­sure an­i­mal wel­fare.