Shar­lene Ram­per­sad

En­vi­ron­men­tal­ist Marc de Ver­teuil is call­ing on hunters to self-reg­u­late them­selves as he says the Gov­ern­ment is not do­ing what is nec­es­sary to pro­tect wildlife dur­ing the hunt­ing sea­son.

De Ver­teuil's com­ments came fol­low­ing a Face­book post by the El So­cor­ro Cen­tre for Wildlife Con­ser­va­tion show­ing a dead ocelot, al­leged­ly killed by hunters in an at­tempt to in­crease the agouti pop­u­la­tion. The ocelot is a pro­tect­ed species.

In an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, De Ver­teuil told the T&T Guardian there was an ab­sence of man­age­ment over the hunt­ing sea­son. The hunt­ing sea­son opened on Oc­to­ber 1 and clos­es at the end of Feb­ru­ary 2017.

"Hunt­ing sea­son has start­ed again in T&T. There is an ab­sence of man­age­ment and en­force­ment so hunters must self-reg­u­late un­til the Gov­ern­ment can get its act to­geth­er and reg­u­late the sport," he said.

"The fact some feel the need to cull ocelots in­di­cates that they have no­ticed a de­cline in the (agouti) species. Who is to blame, man or ocelot?

"There are pic­tures on so­cial me­dia of some show­ing their kill of mul­ti­ple agoutis in one night, some­time four or five or more. This adds to year-round poach­ing, habi­tat loss and bush fires. How can that be sus­tain­able?" he asked.

Quot­ing from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies Life Sci­ences On­line Guide to An­i­mals of T&T, De Ver­teuil said: "Ocelots' prey can in­clude agoutis but ac­cord­ing to in­for­ma­tion from UWI their main prey is small ro­dents."

He said the study showed that ocelots fed on ro­dents that were less than three per cent of its own body weight.

"An ocelot weighs a max­i­mum of 40 pounds ac­cord­ing to the same source, so that means ro­dents of a max­i­mum of 1.2 pounds, which would be a very small agouti in­deed," he added.

Stat­ing that the agouti should be left for the ocelots, De Ver­teuil said: "No­body in T&T de­pends on hunt­ing for sur­vival. There is not a sin­gle per­son who will starve with­out agouti on the ta­ble. Don't be greedy, leave the agouti for the ocelot."

"The so­lu­tion for hav­ing more agoutis is not the killing of ocelot but the pro­tec­tion of habi­tat and a man­aged, en­forced hunt – fail­ing that maybe we should con­sid­er the ban­ning of hunt­ing again, but that will fail too be­cause there is no­body to en­force a ban."