(CNS): The Cayman Islands Humane Society has referred to as the brand new guidelines surrounding invasive species “gross” and “an unnecessary, disproportionate” response to the issue of feral animals and “a drastic regression for animal welfare”. As the general public backlash continues in opposition to efforts to guard Cayman’s threatened endemic and native species, the non-profit organisation has claimed that not one of the animal charities have been consulted in regards to the new rules.
In an open letter to Premier Wayne Panton, the minister for sustainability who has duty for the National Conservation Council, the animal activists complain that the federal government has not correctly thought of trap-neuter-release as an answer. The CIHS confirmed this was confined to cats and doesn’t embrace feral chickens or rats.
In the letter, the NPO mentioned the rules have been irrational and that “a confused, inconsistent and misleading narrative” was being propagated by the federal government. “The Regulations represent a grossly disproportionate response to the perceived issues and provide for an equally disproportionate enforcement regime. The fact that the Government has not only seen fit to criminalise the feeding of cats and chickens, but has deemed this to be an imprisonable offence, is something of which this Government should be deeply ashamed,” the charity wrote to the premier.
The rules have been greater than a decade within the making and have emerged on account of the large issues the Department of Environment has had in trying to train management programmes for alien species, together with the restricted feral cat cull. Nevertheless, the CIHS claimed the foundations have been “rushed, with little thought to how they would play out in practice or be enforced”.
Asking the federal government to rethink its place on the criminalisation of feeding feral cats and chickens, which might encourage “willful neglect, thereby causing cruel and unnecessary suffering”, the CIHS mentioned it had relegated Cayman’s animal welfare regime far behind these of different developed nations. “The current state of affairs is plainly untenable. Failure to remedy the defects in the Regulations will likely result in far greater suffering for the animals of these islands, including those the government purportedly seeks to protect.”
However, the rules have been applied exactly to guard Cayman’s threatened wildlife. Alien species play a essential half within the demise of native species, such because the brown boobies on Cayman Brac, the rock iguanas on each Sister Islands and, particularly, the blue iguanas on Grand Cayman, the place heroic efforts introduced this iconic reptile again from the brink of extinction.
The DoE has mentioned that a variety of elements, such because the over-development of the islands and local weather change, are posing a menace to the way forward for many native species, however the threats from feral animals are identified to be catastrophically damaging. The division is making an attempt to sort out the “state of emergency” for native species, and John Bothwell and Fred Burton from the DoE have each defined on a variety of events why the brand new guidelines are required.
Trapping, neutering after which releasing feral cats and dogs reduces the variety of the subsequent technology however does little to scale back the rapid affect on the iguanas, native birds and lizards. Nevertheless, the CIHS has requested the federal government to withdraw the rules to hold out additional session with the general public and begin a “constructive dialogue” to establish a proportionate response to the animal welfare problem.
See the letter within the CNS Library.
