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Saturday, July 26, 2025

Judge tells Chief Game Warden:

Reconsider application for kangaroos at Chaguaramas Eco Park 

by

Derek Achong
2073 days ago
20191122
 Eleanor Donaldson-Honeywell

Eleanor Donaldson-Honeywell

The Chief Game War­den has been or­dered to re­con­sid­er an ap­pli­ca­tion from a wildlife con­ser­va­tion com­pa­ny from Ch­aguara­mas for the im­por­ta­tion of two fe­male red kan­ga­roos. 

In a 17-page judg­ment de­liv­ered at the Hall of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, High Court Judge Eleanor Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well ruled that Chief Game War­den Court­ney Park’s de­ci­sion to refuse An­i­mals for Ed­u­ca­tion Ltd’s ap­pli­ca­tion was un­rea­son­able, pro­ce­du­ral­ly un­fair and im­prop­er. 

The com­pa­ny, which op­er­ates the Sa­fari Eco Park in Ch­aguara­mas, was con­tend­ing that Park con­sid­ered ir­rel­e­vant is­sues when he re­fused to grant the im­port per­mit in Feb­ru­ary, last year.

Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well dis­agreed but up­held the case based on the fact that Park failed to seek a re­sponse to the is­sues from the com­pa­ny be­fore mak­ing his de­ci­sion. 

As part of her judge­ment, Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well quashed the de­ci­sion and or­dered Park to re­con­sid­er the com­pa­ny’s ap­pli­ca­tion.  She al­so or­dered the State to pay the com­pa­ny’s le­gal costs for bring­ing the law­suit. 

Ac­cord­ing to the ev­i­dence pre­sent­ed in the case, the com­pa­ny made the ap­pli­ca­tion to im­port the kan­ga­roos from On­tario, Cana­da, in May 2017. The com­pa­ny was at­tempt­ing to in­crease the size of the mob of kan­ga­roos it cur­rent­ly has on dis­play at its fa­cil­i­ty. 

Af­ter sev­er­al months of de­lay, Park made the de­ci­sion and claimed it was based on the fact that the Min­istry of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment was re­view­ing its op­er­a­tions and the Ch­aguara­mas De­vel­op­ment Au­thor­i­ty (CDA) was dis­put­ing the com­pa­ny’s lease agree­ment with it. 

While the law­suit was on­go­ing, the com­pa­ny learned that Park did not dis­close that he al­so con­sid­ered ad­vice from Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries Min­is­ter Clarence Ramb­harat over con­cerns about the com­pa­ny’s op­er­a­tions. 

Ramb­harat had re­quest­ed that its ap­pli­ca­tions for im­port per­mits be re­fused and ones pre­vi­ous­ly grant­ed re­voked un­til the com­ple­tion of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the Min­istry of Health and the Zo­o­log­i­cal So­ci­ety. 

In her judg­ment, Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well not­ed that Park did not mere­ly fol­low the in­struc­tions but used the in­for­ma­tion to make his own de­ci­sion. 

“He ex­plained that it was his own view that the in­for­ma­tion re­ceived was rel­e­vant to the se­cu­ri­ty of tenure of the claimant’s pos­ses­sion of the site to keep the kan­ga­roos and hence the wel­fare of the an­i­mals,” she said. 

The com­pa­ny was rep­re­sent­ed by Ra­jiv Per­sad, John Heath, Ele­na Da Sil­va, Lau­ris­sa Mol­len­thiel and Li­onel Luck­hoo. Kar­lene Seenath, Ronelle Hinds and Am­ri­ta Ram­sook ap­peared for the State.


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