Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

A  Pe­nal farmer who ad­mit­ted that he shot and killed a cow that strayed on­to his prop­er­ty on Mon­day night, said it was not his in­ten­tion to kill the an­i­mal but to ward it off as he had done on pre­vi­ous oc­ca­sions.

The 76-year-old man, who did not want to be iden­ti­fied, he was at home watch­ing crick­et around 11.30 pm when he no­ticed shad­ows in the yard. He took up his shot­gun and went out­side and saw about eight cows. 

"When I come out in the night I of­ten take my firearm. I did not want to kill them, I was just go­ing to shoot to scare them off," he said.

But then two start to come to­wards me. I re­treat­ed but they did not stop and I fired. I didn't want to shoot them, just scare them, so I shoot off of them and low. They ran off but one stayed back and I re­alise that it got shot."   

He said the own­er of the an­i­mal col­lect­ed the car­cass the fol­low­ing morn­ing.

The farmer said un­teth­ered cat­tle have been in­vad­ing his prop­er­ty, de­stroy­ing his crops and dis­tress­ing him for more than a decade. It was about the third or fourth time he dis­charged his firearm to scare them off but the first time that one got shot. 

"I don't feel good about this at all," he said dur­ing an in­ter­view at his home yes­ter­day.

The farmer said he wrote to the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice last ask­ing for as­sis­tance.  In the let­ter, he com­plained that the "cat­tle in­cur­sion has been go­ing on con­tin­u­al­ly for more than 12 years and I have suf­fered thou­sands of dol­lars in dam­ages and in­con­ve­nience with no ef­fec­tive re­course."

He added that he had made more than 50 re­ports and the po­lice had spo­ken to the own­ers of the an­i­mals sev­er­al times but noth­ing changed.  He said the an­i­mals were reared for slaugh­ter.

The farmer, who owns sev­en acres of farm­land, said it is dif­fi­cult to mon­i­tor his prop­er­ty and the an­i­mals in­vade his prop­er­ty, tram­ple his crops and dam­age the arable land with their hooves.

He re­called that three bi­son were roam­ing his prop­er­ty and the road last year.

"The Coun­ty Coun­cil ex­ca­va­tor was clear­ing a canal and they had to stop work be­cause the bi­son at­tacked them," he said.  

The farmer com­plained that he had to stop grow­ing pump­kins be­cause the cat­tle would de­stroy them.  He grows cit­rus and oth­er fruits and claims he lost more than $50,000 worth of crops over the years.

He said he sent the own­er of the an­i­mals a lawyer's let­ter and a What­sApp mes­sage re­quest­ing com­pen­sa­tion, but they were ig­nored. 

"They come here at any time. I want them to stop com­ing. I'm glad to get com­pen­sa­tion, but I'm not fight­ing that. I just want them to stop." 

While Guardian Me­dia was at the farmer's home, the own­er's son ar­rived. The young man broke down in tears as he claimed the cow which was killed was his pet. He as­sured the farmer that steps have been tak­en to se­cure the an­i­mals.