Wildlife in T&T faces nu­mer­ous un­nec­es­sary pres­sures through­out the year: En­vi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion and pol­lu­tion, de­for­esta­tion, a lengthy open hunt­ing sea­son, il­le­gal poach­ing and es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing this dry sea­son, for­est fires.

The for­est fire sea­son be­gins on De­cem­ber 1 and ends on June 30. With hun­dreds of fires be­ing re­port­ed an­nu­al­ly, it means our lo­cal fau­na, in­clud­ing red brock­et deer, agouti, lappe, nine-band­ed ar­madil­lo, snakes, lizards and hun­dreds of species of birds die as flames rav­age their del­i­cate for­est ecosys­tems. These fires neg­a­tive­ly af­fect the al­ready dwin­dling wildlife pop­u­la­tions.

This brings us to the ques­tion–when will the sur­vivors of these fires and their burnt-out habi­tats ever have time to re­cov­er? A sev­en-month fire sea­son leaves hard­ly any room for an­i­mals to find refuge es­pe­cial­ly when the sit­u­a­tion is made worse with a five-month open hunt­ing sea­son. This pro­longed hunt­ing sea­son, with thou­sands of hunt­ing per­mits be­ing is­sued an­nu­al­ly, adds ad­di­tion­al pres­sure to our wildlife, es­pe­cial­ly game an­i­mals.

When will the pres­sure end for these help­less crea­tures? Should the hunt­ing sea­son be cur­tailed or should it be banned to­tal­ly to al­low these de­fense­less species a chance to breed and mul­ti­ply? Any right-think­ing in­di­vid­ual will re­alise that we must give our an­i­mals a respite from all these ills bom­bard­ing them. Maybe we will on­ly miss the wa­ter when the well runs dry.

S Khan

St Au­gus­tine