This trade should be banned!
Why should our natural heritage be plundered for the gratification of a few?
Viewpoint
By Steve Surujbally
Guyana Chronicle
July 15, 2004
THE dolphin furore has once again brought into focus the more fundamental issue of wildlife exportation. It is my considered point of view/opinion that this trade in Guyana's precious assets should be banned. This position receives the support of national and international conservation groups.
Why should our natural heritage be plundered for the gratification of a few? If people want to see our flora and fauna, let them visit the plants and animals in their natural habitat. And the argument that Amerindians and others losing income is just a red herring. Trappers receive a relatively small token sum compared with the final price of the animal. In any case, in a well-managed conservation exercise, these same people can find employment in an organised tourist sub-sector, as tour guides, game wardens and National Park administrators/ technical personnel.
If we continue to wantonly exploit our natural savannah, riverain and silvestral resources, soon there will be none left. Nature always has a critical mass, and once the depletion point is reached, the situation becomes irreparable and irreversible. Then those same wildlife traders will switch into another form of business without batting an eyelid. The point I am making is that there has never been any interest shown by wildlife traders in the perpetuation and conservation of our fauna. Never once have we ever heard of wildlife dealers offering financial support for the quest to ascertain (scientifically) the existing numbers of any species indigenous to our mountains, savannahs, rivers and forests. Never once has any trader approached the government with a solid plan to utilise one of the many islands in the Essequibo River as a breeding sanctuary in a natural environment. Wildlife trading is simply to capture the animals, place them in notoriously inadequate conditions (any cage is inadequate for a free roaming animal), and ferry them out of the country to be again caged so that they can be stared at in captivity. Enough has been written about the fate of our animals as they arrive in distant climates. The mortality rate is high. What the actual transport does not kill the new unaccustomed environment does.
Also, since we are discussing the destruction of our heritage, we must mention the wanton killing of our wildlife within the context of hunting as a sport. What a sordid "sport"? Does the pregnant Savannah Deer have a chance at life when fixed in the cross hairs of a rifle at a distance of 200 yards? She does not even know that death is imminent and that her heart will be ripped apart by trajectiled lead from a high-powered rifle. If she is unlucky, one leg might be shattered allowing her to hobble into a "bush island", where she will languish over days (if a predator doesn't get her first), even give birth to offspring, before death relieves her of suffering.
Already beautiful animals are on the verge of extinction in our hinterland because of the pincer predation and double whammy of the hunters and trappers. The tapir, which looks like a pig, is called a bush cow but which in fact belongs to the equine (horse) family is now rarely seen, not even their tracks. This is an animal, which has been so compatible with its environment that it has not needed to change its structure for fifty million years. Yet our fun-loving sportsmen and trappers can make them extinct in decades - as was done to their cousins the Wool Tapir of the highlands of Central America.
This whole wildlife trade and this perverted activity of hunting for fun are, and have always been despicable. We, having given ourselves the title of Homo sapiens, cannot allow the fellow travellers on this spaceship Earth to be exploited and to suffer just for the gratification of a few