CHARLES KONG SOO

In a cru­el twist of irony, thieves made off with 49 en­dan­gered birds con­sist­ing of blue and gold macaws, peafowl, white-faced whistling ducks, ful­vous whistling ducks, 25 wild Mus­covy duck­lings and a brand new large in­cu­ba­tor con­tain­ing six white-faced whistling ducks from the Pointe-a-Pierre Wild­fowl Trust on June 5—World En­vi­ron­ment Day.

Se­nior ed­u­ca­tion of­fi­cer at the Pointe-a-Pierre Wild­fowl Trust Jaleen West said while se­cu­ri­ty has been beefed up at the sanc­tu­ary fol­low­ing the avian theft, the trust will con­tin­ue with its bird and en­dan­gered species breed­ing pro­gramme and ed­u­ca­tion­al pro­grammes.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia on Sat­ur­day, West said “The Pointe-a-Pierre Wild­fowl Trust is lo­cat­ed with­in a se­cure area in the Petrotrin Es­tate and we have nev­er been in­vad­ed in such a dev­as­tat­ing way be­fore.

“Since 1966, the trust has bred and re­leased hun­dreds of these lo­cal­ly en­dan­gered species and linked this to our En­vi­ron­men­tal Ed­u­ca­tion and Pub­lic Aware­ness Pro­grammes so that there will be greater aware­ness of these nat­ur­al as­sets to our coun­try and peo­ple.

“Of course, we will con­tin­ue these valu­able pro­grammes as a ser­vice to the coun­try and peo­ple. We’re still ex­plor­ing av­enues for se­cu­ri­ty. We have ad­di­tion­al sur­veil­lance in the area, but we want to re­fo­cus on our birds.

“With that theft, we would have lost a sig­nif­i­cant amount of birds and en­dan­gered species we were breed­ing. The good part about it was they did not com­plete­ly clear us out; we still have birds, vi­able species of birds to con­tin­ue with our breed­ing pro­gramme.”

She said the trust want­ed to go ahead, re­vamp and push that part of its work; avi­cul­ture (the prac­tice of keep­ing and breed­ing birds).

West added when COVID-19 was brought un­der con­trol and the coun­try can grad­u­al­ly re­open, the sanc­tu­ary can con­tin­ue with the en­vi­ron­men­tal ed­u­ca­tion pro­grammes that they of­fer to stu­dents and the pub­lic.

Re­gard­ing an in­cu­ba­tor con­tain­ing eggs that were al­so stolen, she ex­plained that equip­ment can be re­placed whether through spon­sors or oth­er av­enues, the trust will get re­place­ment equip­ment in the near fu­ture.

When asked if any on­line fundrais­ing plat­form such as Go­FundMe was start­ed to raise mon­ey for the trust, West said so far none have been es­tab­lished, how­ev­er, she was sure many peo­ple would want to do­nate to such a cause

She re­vealed that two pea­cocks and two pea­hens were stolen, one was a rare white, the trust would be ex­plor­ing av­enues on re­plac­ing them, and she was al­so hope­ful with their up­com­ing breed­ing pe­ri­od they will get peachicks.

West said En­vi­ron­men­tal­ist Mol­ly Gaskin and Kar­i­lyn Shep­ard, who have been at the fore­front of the in­ter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised sanc­tu­ary, want­ed to high­light its 55th an­niver­sary de­spite the mishap.

She elab­o­rat­ed that the trust be­ing a na­tion­al her­itage site un­der the Na­tion­al Trust Act, the on­ly con­ser­va­tion or­gan­i­sa­tion lo­cat­ed with­in an in­dus­tri­al com­plex in the world, the on­ly con­ser­va­tion or­gan­i­sa­tion of its kind in the re­gion and the sec­ond old­est wa­ter­fowl re­serve in the world, Gaskin and Shep­ard felt com­pelled that go­ing for­ward with the avian breed­ing pro­gramme and ed­u­ca­tion pro­grammes were nec­es­sary to not lose the trust’s lega­cy for fu­ture gen­er­a­tions.