Trinidad Bans Hunting Scarlet Ibis This Year

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30630, 22 December 1964, Page 19

Trinidad Bans Hunting Scarlet Ibis This Year

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter)

PORT OF SPAIN (Trinidad). The scarlet ibis, the national bird of Trinidad, has been granted a special “stay of execution” throughout the 1964 hunting season, which was due to begin on October 1.

Hunters in Trinidad’s extensive swamplands have been prohibited from shooting this bright red bird with long curving bill because, for some unknown reason, the flocks have not nested this year.

In former years, hunters were allowed to shoot the ibis, which, in the Caribbean, is rarely found outside Trinidad, and tourists were sometimes shocked to find the national bird figuring on the menu of the more expensive city restaurants in Port of Spain. Commenting on this year's ban, Mr E. H. Murray, the acting chief game warden, said that little was known about the bird’s breeding habits and there was still a slender chance that the flocks might nest. “But to allow shooting of the adult bird in a year when no young have been produced would be certain to lower the total population,” he said, adding that he hoped that new information on the life cycles and habits of these birds would emerge from observations carried out during this extra “closed season for the scarlet ibis.” Even more humble swamp birds have this year been protected from the shotguns for an extra month, the closed season having been extended until November 1. This is largely to give the wild ducks which migrate to Trinidad from the north time to settle down in the swamplands, instead of being frightened off by the blast of the guns.

Penalties for hunting protected game range from fines of up to 250 British West Indies dollars (£5O) to imprisonment for as long as six months.