Fol­low­ing the US­DA’s con­fir­ma­tion of COVID-19 in a tiger at the Bronx Zoo , the Em­per­or Val­ley Zoo in Trinidad and To­ba­go—and by ex­ten­sion the Zo­o­log­i­cal So­ci­ety of Trinidad and To­ba­go (ZSTT)—are giv­ing as­sur­ances that they do­ing every­thing pos­si­ble to keep the an­i­mals at the lo­cal zoo COVID-19 free.

In the of­fi­cial state­ment is­sued this morn­ing, Pres­i­dent of the Em­per­or Val­ley Zoo, Nar­ine Gupte Lutch­me­di­al, notes that the Em­per­or Val­ley Zoo took strin­gent mea­sures to pro­tect the an­i­mals, staff and mem­bers of the pub­lic ear­ly on, to en­sure there was no in­ter-species trans­mis­sion of the nov­el coro­n­avirus in its sphere of in­flu­ence.

Mr Lutch­me­di­al al­so notes that clos­ing the Zoo in mid-March, well ahead of oth­er zoos around the world, was part of sev­er­al pro­to­cols it has put in place to en­sure safe­ty of all its charges.

The full text of Mr Lutch­me­di­al’s state­ment, fol­lows…

State­ment By The Zo­o­log­i­cal So­ci­ety Of Trinidad And To­ba­go

EM­PER­OR VAL­LEY ZOO MON­I­TOR­ING OF COVID-19—IM­PACT ON ZOO AN­I­MALS

The Zo­o­log­i­cal So­ci­ety of Trinidad and To­ba­go (ZSTT), is the op­er­a­tor of the Em­per­or Val­ley Zoo which hous­es sev­er­al pri­mates, and large and lo­cal cats in­clud­ing li­ons, tigers, ocelots and jaguars. There are oth­er an­i­mals with sim­i­lar bi­o­log­i­cal char­ac­ter­is­tics as these an­i­mals.

Since late 2019 the ZSTT has been alert to the pres­ence of a new coro­n­avirus strain and our prepa­ra­tions were in line with our re­sponse to MERS and SARS be­fore. On ac­count of this we have been in reg­u­lar con­tact with the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries and oth­er glob­al part­ners in­clud­ing the Zo­o­log­i­cal As­so­ci­a­tion of Amer­i­ca (ZAA).

The first ma­jor step tak­en by the ZSTT in re­spect of the ar­rival of COVID-19 in Trinidad and To­ba­go was to close the Em­per­or Val­ley Zoo from Sun­day March 15, 2020 for one week ini­tial­ly. Since then the Zoo re­mains closed. As we ad­vised then, this de­ci­sion was made at a time when Zoos re­mained open around the world but our de­ci­sion was in line with the state­ment of the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter about lim­it­ed ac­tiv­i­ty in pub­lic places. Since then the Zoo has been iden­ti­fied as es­sen­tial work in the con­text of the Stay At Home cam­paign and COVID-19 Reg­u­la­tions. We op­er­ate on a re­vised shift sys­tem to en­sure that an­i­mals are fed and looked af­ter, and the fa­cil­i­ties are se­cured and san­i­tized.

The ZSTT has con­sid­ered both the state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day by the Unit­ed States De­part­ment of Agri­cul­ture’s (US­DA) and the one is­sued last night by the Ho­n­ourable Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries with our ad­vice.

The Min­istry of Health is the coun­try’s au­thor­i­ty on all mat­ters con­cern­ing COVID-19, in­clud­ing this one. We are al­ready in con­sul­ta­tions with Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries on the like­ly im­pact for Trinidad and To­ba­go of this de­vel­op­ment at the Bronx Zoo.

At this time these are the key points we wish to share with our cit­i­zens, based on in­for­ma­tion cur­rent­ly in the pub­lic do­main:

- this pos­i­tive test at the Bronx Zoo is the first in­stance of a tiger be­ing in­fect­ed with COVID-19;

- sam­ples from the tiger at the Bronx Zoo were tak­en and test­ed af­ter sev­er­al li­ons and tigers at that Zoo showed symp­toms of res­pi­ra­to­ry ill­ness;

- the US­DA says pub­lic health of­fi­cials be­lieve these large cats be­came sick af­ter be­ing ex­posed to a zoo em­ploy­ee who was ac­tive­ly shed­ding virus;

- the Bronx Zoo has been closed to the pub­lic since mid-March, and the first tiger be­gan show­ing signs of sick­ness on March 27;

- all of these large cats are ex­pect­ed to re­cov­er;

- there is no ev­i­dence that oth­er an­i­mals in oth­er ar­eas of the Bronx Zoo are show­ing symp­toms;

- there is still no ev­i­dence that COVID-19 can be trans­mit­ted from an­i­mal to hu­man;

- the Em­per­or Val­ley Zoo was closed on March 15, 2020 as a pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sure even be­fore zoos around the world were clos­ing;

- em­ploy­ees at the Em­per­or Val­ley Zoo who in­ter­act with the an­i­mals, par­tic­u­lar­ly the pri­mates, have been un­der­go­ing health sur­veil­lance in line with COVID-19 guide­lines and this con­tin­ues;

- none of the an­i­mals at the Em­per­or Val­ley Zoo show symp­toms as­so­ci­at­ed with COVID-19;

- the ZSTT to­geth­er with the Em­per­or Val­ley Zoo and the Chief Vet Of­fi­cer of the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor all de­vel­op­ments glob­al­ly in con­nec­tion with COVID-19 and an­i­mals;

- there have been a hand­ful of re­ports out­side the US of pet dogs or cats be­com­ing in­fect­ed af­ter close con­tact with con­ta­gious peo­ple, in­clud­ing a Hong Kong dog that test­ed pos­i­tive for a low lev­el of the pathogen in Feb­ru­ary and ear­ly March;

- the ZSTT and Em­per­or Val­ley Zoo are in di­rect con­tact with the Zo­o­log­i­cal As­so­ci­a­tion of the Amer­i­c­as and John Sey­ja­gat its T&T-born CEO and ZSTT Board mem­ber;

- the ZAA is com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go with tech­ni­cal sup­port on this is­sue as it de­vel­ops;

- the ZSTT would be guid­ed by the Min­istry of Health on this mat­ter;

A fur­ther state­ment on this mat­ter would be pro­vid­ed by the Min­istry of Health.

Nar­ine Lutch­me­di­al
Pres­i­dent
Zo­o­log­i­cal So­ci­ety of Trinidad and To­ba­go (ZSTT)