Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Fire­works Use Suf­fer­ers (FUS) pres­i­dent Nali­ni Di­al is urg­ing the Em­per­or Val­ley Zoo man­age­ment to pub­licly raise con­cerns about the use of fire­works dur­ing the In­de­pen­dence Day Pa­rade, as well as the re­lo­ca­tion of the an­nu­al event clos­er to the zoo’s com­pound.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Di­al, a long­time an­i­mal rights ad­vo­cate, said she had hoped the zoo would have been more vo­cal about the re­port­ed re­turn of fire­works as part of the cel­e­bra­tions.

“We our­selves don’t un­der­stand why the man­age­ment of the zoo doesn’t come out and de­mand that there be no fire­works be­cause the an­i­mals are bad­ly trau­ma­tised,” Di­al said.

“We are con­cerned about do­mes­tic an­i­mals, but the zoo is right there, and we don’t un­der­stand why the zoo doesn’t make enough noise about it for the Gov­ern­ment to stop hav­ing fire­works there.”

Di­al al­so sug­gest­ed that the zoo should ad­dress any con­cerns it may have about the planned re­lo­ca­tion of the pa­rade grounds from the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah Grand Stand to an area clos­er to Pres­i­dent’s House.

How­ev­er, an­oth­er an­i­mal rights ac­tivist, Jow­elle De Souza, said she did not fore­see any is­sues with this year’s pa­rade lo­ca­tion. She said she had been in con­tact with the zoo’s man­age­ment re­gard­ing any po­ten­tial stress the event might cause the an­i­mals.

“The pa­rade it­self is tak­ing place dur­ing the day. It’s not some­thing that’s loud or will cre­ate any sort of hav­oc for the an­i­mals,” De Souza said.

“It’s re­al­ly the fire­works that cre­ate a very big prob­lem, but, as I said, the Prime Min­is­ter is now us­ing drones to sub­sti­tute the fire­works.

“The pa­rade is not at all... if you know where the pa­rade is, in the mid­dle of the Sa­van­nah, it’s not go­ing to af­fect the an­i­mals, and I have been in con­tact with the zoo about it.

“I con­tact­ed them to see if this would cre­ate any prob­lems at all, and re­al­ly and tru­ly, I don’t see it cre­at­ing any. I don’t think the drums or any­thing of that sort will cre­ate any prob­lems for them.”

De Souza added that she was op­ti­mistic the use of a drone show would help re­duce re­liance on fire­works and pre­vent an­i­mals from be­ing sub­ject­ed to un­nec­es­sary stress.

“I think the Gov­ern­ment is aware and is tak­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty to de­ter­mine how it will move for­ward and en­sure that no an­i­mals, el­der­ly peo­ple or mem­bers of the pub­lic are harmed,” she said.

“So, let us hope what they’re say­ing is true and that it turns out in the best way for Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Guardian Me­dia sought a re­sponse from the Em­per­or Val­ley Zoo but was di­rect­ed to con­tact the Zo­o­log­i­cal So­ci­ety of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

How­ev­er, a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the so­ci­ety ad­vised us to con­tact the Em­per­or Val­ley Zoo di­rect­ly. An email seek­ing the zoo’s re­sponse was al­so sent. How­ev­er, no re­ply had been re­ceived up to press time.