Fifty-year-old Idaraj Ma­habir and his 29-year-old son Kim­raj were grant­ed to­tal bail of $180,000 af­ter they ap­peared on charges re­lat­ed to hav­ing five car­cass­es of one of T&T’s na­tion­al birds, the Scar­let Ibis, yes­ter­day.

How­ev­er, while they now face a hefty fine of $.5 mil­lion and im­pris­on­ment if found guilty on the charge, both men were al­so im­me­di­ate­ly banned from ap­ply­ing for hunt­ing per­mits or en­ter­ing the Ca­roni Bird Sanc­tu­ary, which is a pro­tect­ed area un­der the Forestry Act.

Ch­agua­nas First Court Mag­is­trate Chris­tine Charles hand­ed down this im­me­di­ate pun­ish­ment, pend­ing de­ter­mi­na­tion of the sub­stan­tive mat­ter, af­ter the men ap­peared be­fore her around 2.40 pm.

The fa­ther and son were joint­ly charged with five counts of hav­ing the birds, which are an en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly sen­si­tive species, at the No.9 drain of the Ca­roni Swamp on Sun­day, con­trary to the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Act Chap­ter 35:05. The charges were laid in­dictably and they were not called up­on to en­ter pleas.

How­ev­er, they were al­so charged with two counts of hunt­ing igua­nas on state lands with­out a li­cense, con­trary to the Con­ser­va­tion of Wild Life Act Chap­ter 67: 01. They plead­ed not guilty to the sum­ma­ry of­fences.

Ma­habir has been em­ployed at the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port Drainage Di­vi­sion for over 20 years, while his son owns a land­scap­ing busi­ness.

In grant­i­ng them bail on the in­dictable of­fences, Charles warned them not to cross the bor­ders of the swamp – No 9 (north); Gulf-of-Paria (west); Madame Es­panol Riv­er or the Cunu­pia Riv­er (south) and the Uri­ah But­ler High­way (east), ex­clud­ing pri­vate lands. She al­so in­struct­ed that be banned from ap­ply­ing for any hunt­ing per­mits from the Forestry Di­vi­sion to al­low them to en­ter the pro­tect­ed area legal­ly.

Game war­dens Richard Ram­lo­gan and Nicholas Lei­th pre­sent­ed the ev­i­dence—the five car­cass­es of the Scar­let Ibis and sev­en igua­nas – in two cool­ers with ice.

On the sum­ma­ry of­fences, both men were grant­ed $5,000 bail each and the mat­ter was trans­ferred to the Sec­ond Court for De­cem­ber 21. On the in­dictable of­fences, the Ma­habirs were grant­ed $90,000 each or a cash bail of $25,000.

Singh asked for le­nien­cy in the cash val­ue bail but Charles de­clined due to the num­ber of car­cass­es and the fact that the Scar­let Ibis is a pro­tect­ed species. Pos­ses­sion can draw a fine of up to $100,000 for each bird along with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of up to two years’ im­pris­on­ment.

Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture Clarence Ramb­harat, En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty chair­man Nadra Nathai-Gyan and Zo­o­log­i­cal So­ci­ety pres­i­dent Gupte Lutch­me­di­al were all in the court­room be­fore the start of the pro­ceed­ings but left just as a pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry be­gan.

On­ly Lutch­me­di­al re­turned lat­er and sat in the gallery for the hear­ing.

Speak­ing with the T&T Guardian af­ter the hear­ing, Lutch­me­di­al said his wish is for strict penal­ties up­on con­vic­tion so that it would serve as a de­ter­rent to those out there want­i­ng to poach on T&T’s pro­tect­ed birds and an­i­mals.