Hunters, Papa Bois: Little gain from hunting ban

Together with the ban, there were stiffer penalties for illegal hunting and a National Wildlife Survey was launched.

On Thursday the moratorium came to an end and the ban was lifted. So what was accomplished in that time? According to local hunters and an environmental NGO, poaching continued throughout the island over the past two years and little was achieved by the exercise.

Part time Hunter Richard D’Abreau, 43, who has been hunting since age 14, told Sunday Newsday that there was “no real benefit” from the moratorium as it kept law abiding citizens out of the forests but did not stop the illegal poachers.

“You gave unlicenced and illegal hunters access for the last two years,” he said.

D’Abreau said while a security firm was hired, poachers and illegal trap gun hunters were not people “who park a vehicle on the road” but maintained a very low profile and create make-shift camps. Government has not found a way to deal with illegal poaching, he added. He said the moratorium put a lot of people out of income, especially in the rural areas, maintaining that Government should not have instituted a ban, but implemented an alternative such as having the hunters catch the animals alive to be used on wildlife farms.

“So much that could be done. But the value for money and preventative action did not achieve that,” he said. D’Abreau also disputed the research on the wildlife numbers, contending that the basis for the need to replenish the numbers was based on permit information from forms given out by the Forestry Division. Sport hunters usually hunt in groups and if a group of six caught two animals it would be recorded incorrectly as 12 people.

“The whole formula coming up with numbers was totally flawed,” he said. D’Abreau said he met with Singh on this issue, but two years later no corrective action had been taken.

He also said there was a perception that all of the animals that are caught, are killed but that some are used on personal farms.

“Rather than the perception of sport hunters being merciless killers, we are very much conservationists.

A number of hunters are rearing wildlife,” he said.

D’Abreau said he purchased his hunting permit and planned to be out hunting this weekend. Fellow hunter, Keron Flores, went out on the first day to hunt.

“It was lively and nice. You hearing a lot of people in the bush,” Flores reported.

Flores, aged 35, and also hunting since age 14, said he hunts full time to support himself and his two dogs. During the two-year ban he had to “hustle” and do a little work.

“We glad for it to come to an end,” he said.

Flores said that illegal poaching “eased up a bit” but it was difficult to control hunting during the ban, especially in the country areas.

“A lot of hunters were out during the moratorium. I do not believe it (moratorium) accomplished anything,” he said.

Asked about the number of animals he was seeing in the forest, Flores said he did not notice much of a difference and that species like agouti, lappe and deer always had large populations. Like D’Abreau, he does not believe that the animals were scarce in the first place.

Meanwhile, Marc De Verteuil, director of local environmental NGO, Papa Bois Conservation, said there were benefits to the ban including that wildlife had a chance to recover and a portion of the National Wildlife Survey was able to be done without the disturbance of hunting; the preliminary findings of the survey recorded in a decrease in wildlife numbers.

De Verteuil said tourism would have benefitted from more animals in the forest as an “animal alive is worth far more than dead”.

“An agouti may sell for $300 in a market but a tour operator can make that amount many times over by showing it to tourists.

This benefits hotels, airlines, restaurants, taxi drivers, maxi taxi operators and rural communities,” he maintained.

He claimed the debate between pro-and anti-hunting lobbies “was not always based on facts and quite antagonistic”.

One thing that the hunters and De Verteuil did agree on though, was that there was not enough enforcement during the ban and poaching continued throughout the island.

“Personally, I have never met a game warden anywhere in the bush. I meet many poachers though.

Often armed with shotguns.

So what can you do, except nod a polite hello, make a complaint and go on your merry way while you see wild hogs, deer and agoutis being taken from the forest year round,” he said.

Asked how he felt about the lifting of the ban, De Verteuil said it was expected, but he was disappointed that the survey was not completed and that there was no new hunting policy.

“Reopening the hunting season without any data or management is irresponsible. It seems as if we are back to square one and that serves nobody.

A lot of political capital was expended in establishing the moratorium but the return is small,” he said.

De Verteuil called for the National Wildlife Survey to be completed and for the data to be used to formulate a scientifically managed hunt.

He also renewed his call for the banning of the sale of wild meat, stressing that there is an “undeniable aspect of animal cruelty involved in hunting” and if you eat wild meat you participate in it.