Carisa Lee

Re­porter 

Carisa.Lee@cnc3.co.tt 

Af­ter nu­mer­ous calls for a ban on fire­works that can cause dis­tress to an­i­mals, ac­tivists at the T&T So­ci­ety for the Pre­ven­tion of Cru­el­ty to An­i­mals (TTSP­CA) have lost one of their dogs, which they be­lieve was due to the loud ex­plo­sions on Old Year’s Day.

Eleven-year-old Je­re­mi­ah was found at 5 am on New Year’s Day in his cage by one of his care­tak­ers at the Mu­cu­rapo Road, St James Shel­ter.

“We found him there just col­lapsed on the ground, and it was in­cred­i­bly dis­tress­ing for the staff,” op­er­a­tions man­ag­er Sara May­nard said.

May­nard said they just knew the fire­works played a big role in Je­re­mi­ah’s death.

“He had a health con­di­tion, but they checked on him the night be­fore; they checked on him the day be­fore; every­thing was fine, and the on­ly change was the heavy fire­works we had in this area,” she said.

May­nard re­called the night in 2021 when she first met Je­re­mi­ah and Jess, who were res­cued from their home by po­lice af­ter nu­mer­ous re­ports of mal­nu­tri­tion and ill-treat­ment. She said many peo­ple re­port­ed the case be­fore, and when she fi­nal­ly met them, they were in a “hor­ri­ble state.”

“We did an emer­gency vet call­out. They had heart­worm, tick fever. Jess’s spleen was en­larged. They re­mained un­der sev­er­al treat­ments for sev­er­al months,” she said.

She said af­ter sev­er­al failed adop­tion promis­es, the TTSP­CA team de­cid­ed to keep them.

“They had a good life with us,” May­nard said.

Fur­ther­more, May­nard said in 2019 they were asked by the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture to help de­vel­op stan­dards/reg­u­la­tions for the keep­ing of com­pan­ion an­i­mals, but five-and-a-half years lat­er there were still no reg­u­la­tions.

“What hap­pens is it’s a very grey area, so po­lice, they don’t know what to do; they re­fer peo­ple to us, yet the en­force­ment lies be­tween them and the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture,” she said.

She said she hoped this hap­pened soon, so that no oth­er an­i­mal would have to ex­pe­ri­ence what Jess and the late Je­re­mi­ah did for most of their lives.

“The first night I met him (Je­re­mi­ah) he nev­er stopped wag­ging his tail. He loved every­body he met and would walk up to you; he just has this lov­ing, sweet per­son­al­i­ty. That’s the thing with an­i­mals—they can for­give you, and they can put things in their past,” she ex­plained.

“He was a very, very hap­py, sweet fel­la, and that’s what we found so hard,” she added.

May­nard said they were keep­ing an eye on Jess, who has al­so a friend called Mis­sy.

She said the shel­ter has been in­un­dat­ed with calls from peo­ple look­ing for lost pets or re­port­ing them (main­ly dogs and cats). She said on their first day of op­er­a­tion for the year yes­ter­day, they re­ceived about ten calls.

“We talk about fire­works start­ing and hav­ing fire­works from the 31st, but re­al­ly and tru­ly the fire­works start­ed be­fore Christ­mas, and they’re sort of ran­dom, and this is the prob­lem. They say 'well, se­cure your pets, se­cure your pets', but when do you se­cure your pets?” she said.

Mean­while, no an­i­mals at the Em­per­or Val­ley Zoo died over the hol­i­day sea­son due to fire­works, but they will con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor them.

A source, who asked to re­main anony­mous said there was staff on-site with the an­i­mals as the rest of the coun­try rang in the new year. This is done as most of the an­i­mals are fa­mil­iar or bond­ed with the staff, and it helps to cre­ate a calm­ing en­vi­ron­ment to coun­ter­act the neg­a­tive noise of fire­works.

"Al­so, each en­clo­sure has built-in shel­ters spe­cif­ic to each an­i­mal’s needs. The an­i­mals can re­treat to these safe spaces if they choose to,” the per­son said.

The source said all species of an­i­mals are af­fect­ed to some de­gree by the loud ex­plo­sions. This would al­so in­clude the var­i­ous species of wild an­i­mals that in­hab­it the trees and veg­e­ta­tion sur­round­ing the zoo’s com­pound.

“There are many wild birds that would have been ad­verse­ly af­fect­ed,” the per­son said.

The Em­per­or Val­ley Zoo work­ers said they un­der­stand that peo­ple love their fire­works but the neg­a­tive im­pact of the ex­plo­sive sounds on the an­i­mals, whether do­mes­tic, wild, or cap­tive, rais­es con­cerns.

“We should be try­ing to pro­tect wildlife and the en­vi­ron­ment, utilise spaces in fur­ther prox­im­i­ty to res­i­dences and in­sti­tu­tions, such as the zoo,” the source said.