Ex­ot­ic an­i­mals seized

Kaz­im warns cit­i­zens not to sup­port il­le­gal wildlife trade

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Hours af­ter the po­lice con­fis­cat­ed cages of smug­gled mon­keys, par­rots and macaws, Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein is urg­ing cit­i­zens to re­port any­one who har­bours ex­ot­ic an­i­mals.

Sound­ing a warn­ing that any­one who sup­ports the il­le­gal wildlife trade will face the full brunt of the law, Ho­sein said this has hurt TT's ecosys­tem.

Say­ing this il­le­gal wildlife trade will not be tol­er­at­ed, Ho­sein com­mend­ed the quick ac­tion by the po­lice who seized two wedge-capped ca­puchin mon­keys, four Blue and Gold Macaws and 36 yel­low-crowned par­rots on Wednes­day.

Al­ready, TT's lo­cal ecosys­tem faces neg­a­tive im­pacts from the en­try of smug­gled an­i­mals in­to TT, Ho­sein said, not­ing that this will no longer be tol­er­at­ed.

“ These an­i­mals may in­tro­duce dis­eases and vi­ral in­fec­tions in­to our sys­tem. There­fore, I am en­cour­ag­ing cit­i­zens to be mind­ful of the dis­as­trous im­pact sup­port­ing this trade may have on lo­cal wildlife and the dan­gers posed in hu­man in­ter­ac­tion," Ho­sein said.

Urg­ing cit­i­zens to think twice be­fore be­ing lured in­to the se­duc­tion of a pur­chase, Ho­sein not­ed: “ I un­der­stand a de­sire for ex­ot­ic birds and an­i­mals as pets or con­sump­tion. But the price is too great to ig­nore; you may ex­pose your loved one to harm.”

Mean­while, the con­ser­va­tor of For­est Den­ny Dipchans­ingh said he and his team will con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor the sale of these ex­ot­ic an­i­mals in pet shops.

Say­ing the il­lic­it trade in wildlife in TT re­mains a con­cern, Dipchans­ingh said sev­er­al mea­sures have al­ready been im­ple­ment­ed to deal with these prob­lems. "These in­clude joint pa­trols and in­spec­tions by for­est of­fi­cers, game war­dens and of­fi­cers from the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry," he said.

He added: "Once per­pe­tra­tors are found in breach of the Con­ser­va­tion of Wildlife Act (CWA), charges are laid against them. We will con­tin­u­ous­ly mon­i­tor pet shops, as this is where the sales oc­cur. "

Dipchans­ingh said the Forestry Di­vi­sion will con­tin­ue to do ed­u­ca­tion­al dri­ves and pub­lic aware­ness at all lev­els.

" We will car­ry out in­creased pa­trols out­side the nor­mal work­ing hours to pre­vent fur­ther breach­es to the CWA," Dipchans­ingh added.

He said the Forestry Di­vi­sion had done train­ing pro­grammes for the po­lice, the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Agency (EMA), and oth­er state agen­cies on wildlife en­force­ment and ed­u­ca­tion.

He said of­fi­cials from the Forestry Di­vi­sion, Wildlife sec­tion, are as­sist­ing the TTPS in se­cur­ing the an­i­mals and re­turn­ing them to a suit­able habi­tat.