The Wel­fare Of­fi­cer of the Em­per­or Val­ley Zoo is again ap­peal­ing that the In­de­pen­dence Day fire­works dis­play not be held in such close prox­im­i­ty to the zoo.

Kim­ber­ly Howai made the ap­peal in a post seen on so­cial me­dia on Tues­day evening, ahead of Wednes­day's In­de­pen­dence Day cel­e­bra­tions in Port-of-Spain.

"We ap­peal to the or­gan­is­ers of this event, please help us pro­tect the an­i­mals and not have this dis­play so close to the Em­per­or Val­ley Zoo," Howai wrote.

The In­de­pen­dence Day fire­works dis­play is set for 8 pm Wednes­day.

Howai said she was hor­ri­fied to see that the fire­works dis­play card­ed for In­de­pen­dence Day was moved clos­er to the zoo rather than fur­ther away.

"The launch site has been set up in the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, oblique­ly op­po­site the Pres­i­dent's res­i­dence. I'm ask­ing for the dis­play to be moved out of con­cern for the wel­fare of the an­i­mals at the zoo and those in sur­round­ing ar­eas," she said.

She re­it­er­at­ed that an­i­mals at the zoo and in sur­round­ing ar­eas are trau­ma­tised by dis­plays and hav­ing zoo staff on hand to keep an­i­mals calm can on­ly go so far as there have been in­stances of an­i­mals be­com­ing star­tled and run­ning in­to bar­ri­ers and be­ing in­jured.

Howai said at a re­cent con­sul­ta­tion on planned fire­works law - yet to be fi­nalised- it was "pur­port­ed" that dis­plays should be at least 0.5 miles away from zoos, hos­pi­tals, nat­ur­al re­sources, parks and homes for the el­der­ly. But she said the launch site was on­ly 0.3 miles from the zoo. Howai said she knew peo­ple viewed fire­works for fam­i­ly en­ter­tain­ment, but one form of en­ter­tain­ment shouldn't bring dis­tress or de­stroy an­oth­er.

Agri­cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Min­is­ters Kaz­im Ho­sein and Symon de No­bri­ga didn't re­ply to Trinidad Guardian queries on the is­sue on Tues­day.