Treat animals better, Tobago

THE EDITOR: Open letter to THA Secretary of Tourism, Culture and Antiquities Tashia Grace Burris.

I’m on holiday in Tobago for one week from the UK with my husband. I’m at the hotel because I left the tour early. We were in Castara. I found an injured cat under a hedge in a cafe next to the outdoor dining area and told the hubby to go ahead with our planned tour.

I got a cardboard box from the cafe owner and booked a taxi to the vet in Scarborough. The cat had been lying by a restaurant for three days dragging itself around by the front legs and no one did anything, except a few tourists telling the cafe owner to take it to the vet and trying to give it water.

The cafe owner just kept ignoring them saying he didn’t know what to do as there is no vet in Castara and he doesn’t know who the cat belonged to.

The emergency vet that came out on Sunday to help me was very kind. Sadly, the cat’s spine was damaged badly so there was no movement in the back legs and the vet suspected tetanus had set in too, so the most humane thing to do was to put him out of his misery. He put his little head in the vet's hands and nodded off. The taxi driver cried, and I fell into a depression.

Suffering and neglected dogs and cats are characteristic of the island sadly. We were having breakfast in Crown Point against the backdrop of two street dogs basically putting on a public show of “affection,” to put it politely. Can they not be all be neutered and spayed?

Driving along the island is a constant battle to avoid running over stray and owned dogs, some even chasing cars or refusing to move from the middle of the road.

I saw an emaciated dog in Arnos Vale chained up with the rib cage showing and the neighbours told me the owner repeatedly starves and kills every dog they have.

I reported it to the police and they claimed they cannot do anything as animal cruelty is the Tobago TTSPCA's responsibility. No one answered the phone at the TTSPCA and there is no answering machine. What kind of example is being set for young people when those in authority abdicate responsibility?

The attitude towards animals needs to improve. Could the Government and TTSPCA please go around the island, including Castara, and put up some signs with contact numbers for help with injured animals.

The TTSPCA's money collection statue of the dog in the airport is at the back of departures where very few can see it. I asked the airport officials to move it (even offering to do it myself) to the front where most people could see it and that way they would actually be able to give money to help and they said they needed authorisation from the “airport heads.”

Is it any wonder change (and progress) is so difficult when everything is tied down by bureaucracy? I mean, what is the incentive to use your brain to come up with and try to implement new ideas when you work in such an unnecessarily static environment?

In the Greek island of Rhodes there is a trap, neuter and re-release programme that is very effective, and restaurants and hotels collect leftover food to reduce waste and take it to farms for animal feed. There are public feeding points on the island for cats and dogs. Tourists and locals pool together to fund this.

In Olu Deniz in Turkey there are “community cats and dogs” that are adopted by villages, tagged, spayed and neutered and the villagers take care of them, and volunteer vets check on them regularly.

The answer is not to capture and execute these stray animals – that would be evil. This is a humanity issue, not a public health issue. The Bible states in the book of Genesis that God gave Adam charge over all of the animals in the Garden of Eden and that Jesus is the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep.

In the same way we as humans should be caretakers and not destroyers of God’s creation. Like children they are innocent, they depend on us and trust us, they have feelings too, so please don’t break their hearts.

In the UK, US, and Germany where the bulk of your visitors are from, animals are seen as family members and treated with far greater respect. Is this neglectful and cruel attitude to animals the image Tobago wants to project to visitors? Better has to be done. Excuses are not enough. Action is needed. Very disappointed.

MELISSA VICKERY

London