Minister wants urban hunting ban

AGRICULTURE Minister Clarence Rambharat has suggested a “complete ban” on hunting in urban areas, expressing concern about “strangers” armed with hunting weapons entering private property in Cascade and St Ann’s to hunt iguanas.

At the launch of World Food Day 2018 at Mid Centre Mall car park, Chaguanas today, Rambharat said, "People feel that because I support hunting and hunters, that I am blind to what is happening, but this is the third season, or last year was particularly pronounced, when I was very concerned with what was happening in Port of Spain in particular when it comes to iguanas."

He said a lot of people in Cascade and St Ann’s "were reaching out to me and sending me photos of strangers in their backyard coming to hunt iguana."

Rambharat also said he has been seeing for himself "strangers with pellet guns and airguns coming into people's private property hunting iguanas."

The minister he will take a proposal to Cabinet to do two things.

"One is to restrict, to put a complete ban on hunting of iguanas in that Cascade area, the boundaries of the Port of Spain North/St Ann’s East constituency, and I will start there," he said. "I do not believe that we should be hunting in urban areas.”

Rambharat said the Wildlife Conservation Committee had also been asked to consider whether the hunting season on iguanas should end on December 31 and not February 28. He was concerned that the season extended into the iguana's nesting period. Committee member Buddie Miller confirmed that proposals to restrict hunting in urban areas were sent to Rambharat.

Miller, who is also vice-president of the Hunters Association, also said the committee is proposing a ban on the use of air rifles, which the association knew people were using to hunt iguanas in different parts of the country.

Miller said an iguana is a game animal and a licence is needed to hunt it. Iguanas can be hunted using guns, but he said people instead opt for air rifles because there are no legal requirement around buying and using them. Air rifles are not firearms under the Firearms Act, he said, but are under the the Conservation of Wildlife Act.

Miller also said people try to shoot larger animals like lappes or agoutis with these weapons, and the animals are not killed instantly, but go into the forest to die. No member of the association is involved in this kind of activity, he said.

The Firearms Act speaks to the discharge of firearms in a residential area, he explained, but says nothing about air rifles. He did not know about this activity happening in Federation Park, despite claims of this on social media.

An official from the Caribbean Public Health Agency said no one has harmed any of the iguanas on the grounds of its property in Federation Park, explaining that the iguanas there are protected from any would-be hunters.

Some residents of the area, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they could neither confirm nor deny reports of iguanas being hunted there.

“I’m very concerned to hear about this. What kind of people would do this?” a man asked.

A woman said she heard talk about this on social media. A male resident said he hoped the authorities would address the matter.

– Additional reporting by Richardson Dhalai