Animal advocacy group questions delay in legislative change to punish animal abusers

One animal activist group is disappointed that Government has not followed through on its promises to get tougher on persons who abuse or kill animals.

Founder of the Humane Organisation for the Relief of Suffering Equines (HORSE) Charity, Monique Archer told Barbados TODAY Government’s commitment to launching a public service campaign and to amend the Animal Cruelty Act to allow for stiffer penalties for those found guilty of animal cruelty, had not materialised.

Her comments have come in the wake of the gruesome discovery of the remains of a horse which was reportedly brutally killed earlier this week.

Archer said the horse had been decapitated, one of its legs was amputated and the majority of its lean meat had been taken by the perpetrators. The remains were found in a pasture in St Thomas.

The advocate told Barbados TODAY ever since a video showing a dog dying on Pebbles Beach back in September had caused public outrage and resulted in a man being hauled before the law courts, quicker action had been anticipated.

However, she lamented the fact that months later nothing had been done.

“All the animal charities expressed outrage and concern after the video of Sparky the dog went viral and the Government was very quick to pull all the stakeholders together and the Ministry of Agriculture and the Chief Veterinary Officer and we were all called to a meeting and we were made promises that certain things would happen very quickly.

“One of those things was that they promised we would get a public service announcement campaign with GIS [Government Information Service] as a matter of urgency. Another promise that was made was that they were going to sit with us and revise the Animal Cruelty Act to make the minimum penalties in that Act actually something that was a real deterrent. As far as I know neither of those things has happened and it’s been months since that,” an upset Archer said.

“We haven’t even received the minutes from that meeting and it’s just exasperating. This is something that was in the BLP’s [Barbados Labour Party] manifesto and they have not done enough to improve on this area.”

Archer pointed out that the majority of animal charities had seen increased cases of abuse. She said she hoped the horse’s killing would put the issue on the front burner and force Government to act.

“It’s just very sad and very frustrating and I know all of the other animal charities are struggling with a lot of neglect, a lot of cases of abuse. We’re all stretched very, very thin and it’s something that’s extremely upsetting to the public and it’s also very upsetting to the tourists that frequent our island. They cannot understand how an island as beautiful as this can tolerate issues of cruelty like this,” Archer said.

“We are just hoping that at least with the death of this horse and the torture it went through prior to dying will help push this whole effort forward more and maybe finally get the Government to make the changes that they have been promising to make.”

randybennett@barbadostoday.bb