Take responsibility!

JAMAICA needs more animal shelters, but livestock owners must stop abandoning their roaming, injured animals for the Government to fix, warned Dr Sophia Ramlal, director of the country’s veterinary services. Her comments come in the wake of a recent case involving an injured cow, given the name Moo Moo by residents, that spent days at the side of a road in Spanish Town, St Catherine, after being struck by a vehicle, with no owner coming forward to claim her. Dr Ramlal said while such cases are not common, they have occurred before and are a cause for concern given the dangers stray animals pose to motorists and the general public.

“The Cruelty to Animals Act would address basic welfare issues for animals, the Keeping of Animals Act as well, which speaks to how animals are supposed to be kept and basic things should be provided to them, et cetera. However, there is a need for more pounds in Jamaica. There is a need for the ability to move animals that are stray and ownerless.

I want to say, it is usually an instance where we have animals that are ownerless, or owners are unwilling to come forward and claim the animals, as is the case with this cow [Moo Moo] I’m addressing. In those instances, there is a need for the ability to remove the animals from the space to determine what is to happen to them,” said Ramlal. Dr Sophia Ramlal, director of veterinary services in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining She noted that a handful of organisations are already performing work that extends beyond what their limited infrastructure can reasonably support.

“The Jamaica Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (JSPCA) does really fantastic work, but they are probably, along with a couple of other entities, they are tasked with doing almost national duties without necessarily the infrastructure, so we need to be looking at more shelters, shelters even that work during disasters,” she told the Jamaica Observer. Ramlal said the Government is actively working to tackle rising public safety risks, crop destruction, and traffic hazards caused by stray livestock and roaming animals. Most recently, the Clarendon Municipal Corporation developed a new 20-acre holding facility and retrofitted transport trucks to manage roaming cattle and stray animals.

While State intervention is paramount, Dr Ramlal made it clear that this should not be left up to the Govern…