Acting Director of the Forestry, Wildlife and Parks, Minchinton Burton is calling on hunters and nationals alike to respect the open and closed policy of the hunting season.
He was speaking at a workshop for local hunters on Wednesday, May 11th.
“The Division of Forestry, Wildlife and Parks has, over the years, been involved in ensuring the sustainable use of our natural resources and hunting is a very important part of that. That’s why in the Forestry and Wildlife Act, we have instituted open and closed seasons for hunting. One of the key reasons for that is to ensure that we can sustain the population for future generations. The abundance of wildlife that we enjoy in Dominica, many other countries, do not have.”
He stated that without proper management, Dominica’s wildlife will suffer.
“The work that we’ve done to manage our wildlife resources has assured us wildlife species those of which you enjoy during the hunting season. We have an open season which is normally about a three month period between October and December to coincide with our Independence celebrations. For most of the years we close that season to give the [wildlife] population an opportunity to recover. Were it not for that management system, I’m sure that many of the species would have been extinct or near extinction here.”
The Director encourages hunters to submit relevant data and help the Division update its database.
“You as hunters are obligated to maintain healthy and biological diverse hunting population to protect their habitat. It is very important that we get assistance from you to collate data. We get a lot of important information from a lot of you because you are the ones out there. Some of you tell us about areas where you find less animals and their health.”
He urged hunters to “Assist us with information of your catches from different parts of the island.”
