Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein has as­sured the pub­lic that no flamin­gos will placed in cages at the Ca­roni Swamp. In­stead, he said, they will roam freely across the ex­pan­sive 12,000-acre wet­lands.

Ad­dress­ing spec­u­la­tions yes­ter­day, Ho­sein clar­i­fied that there are no plans to con­struct a flamin­go cage near the re­cent­ly in­au­gu­rat­ed Ca­roni Bird Sanc­tu­ary board­walk.

Em­pha­sis­ing the beau­ty of the nat­ur­al habi­tat, he ex­pressed con­fi­dence that the pres­ence of flamin­gos in their na­tive en­vi­ron­ment will en­rich the swamp’s al­lure.

Last week Stephen Broad­bridge, own­er of Caribbean Dis­cov­ery Tours ex­pressed con­cerns about an en­clo­sure.

In a Face­book mes­sage, he wrote, “The Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture wants to build a cage near their new­ly con­struct­ed board­walk in Ca­roni Swamp to im­prison flamin­gos, so peo­ple wouldn’t have to go all the way in­to the swamp to see the birds. We re­al­ly do not un­der­stand tourism at all.”

He added, “I do ap­plaud his ef­forts to build in­fra­struc­ture but we need to be as un-in­tru­sive as pos­si­ble and spend some mon­ey on se­cu­ri­ty pa­trols to con­trol poach­ing. Maybe the T&T Coast Guard could as­sist.”

Sev­er­al oth­er an­i­mal rights ac­tivists have ex­pressed dis­sat­is­fac­tion with any move to build an en­clo­sure near the Board­walk.

Yes­ter­day, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Field Nat­u­ral­ists’ Club (TTFNC) ob­ject­ed to re­port­ed plans to con­struct a breed­ing cage for flamin­gos at the Win­ston Nanan Ca­roni Bird Sanc­tu­ary.

In a state­ment it said the TTFNC, a so­ci­ety for the study of nat­ur­al his­to­ry, is one of the old­est clubs ex­ist­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go, hav­ing been found­ed on Ju­ly 10, 1891. The club a vol­un­teer, non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion, said its main ob­jec­tives are to bring to­geth­er peo­ple in­ter­est­ed in the study of nat­ur­al his­to­ry and the con­ser­va­tion of na­ture and nat­ur­al re­sources.

It added with­out fur­ther in­for­ma­tion, the state­ment on the pro­posed project seems to sug­gest the cre­ation of a mi­ni-zoo like at­trac­tion at the sanc­tu­ary for lo­cal and vis­it­ing tourists.

The Club viewed this as be­ing in­ap­pro­pri­ate for a set­ting such as a wildlife sanc­tu­ary, which is fo­cused, on pre­serv­ing wildlife and their habi­tats. It said lo­cal vis­i­tors and tourists alike come to the sanc­tu­ary to see flo­ra and fau­na in their nat­ur­al en­vi­ron­ment.

While the Min­is­ter Ho­sein rub­bished re­ports of an en­clo­sure, he said there are plans to re­store the beloved bird­watch­ing tow­er, a move ex­pect­ed to at­tract a surge of tourists to the coun­try.

Ho­sein un­der­scored the swamp’s po­ten­tial for eco-tourism, high­light­ing its di­verse ecosys­tem, which gar­ners in­ter­na­tion­al ap­pre­ci­a­tion.

He again slammed in­ac­cu­rate re­ports on so­cial me­dia that the birds will be im­pris­oned.

Men­tion of a flamin­go en­clo­sure was made dur­ing the open­ing of the Board­walk by Ho­sein and Con­ser­va­tor of Forests Den­ny Dipchans­ingh but there was no in­di­ca­tion that the en­clo­sure was meant to im­prison the birds. Rather the en­clo­sure was in­tend­ed to keep peo­ple away from the flamin­go zone.