BRADES, Montserrat, March 13th, 2012  –  Two experienced marksmen Raymond Ridley and Jeffery Sandon from the UK based Food and Environment Research Agency are on island to assist the Department of Environment with its feral animal control programme.

The marksmen will be accompanied by local shooters from the Department of Environment and hunters with dogs, who will traverse the Centre Hills with a view to reducing the number of free roaming pigs, cattle, sheep and goats.

Feral animals are having a devastating impact on the livelihoods of crop and livestock farmers and backyard gardeners and on ecotourism. They also affect the island’s biodiversity and could lead to the extinction of endemic and rare species of global importance.

Director of Environment Gerard Gray stated that while this targeted knockdown is beneficial, it is also important for livestock farmers to properly manage their livestock so that animals are not allowed to roam free, negatively affecting the lives and livelihoods of residents.

The visit of Ridley and Sandon is part of a project entitled: Conserving the Centre Hills in Montserrat through the effective control of feral livestock populations. The project which is funded by the UK Overseas Territories Environment Programme is executed by the Department of Environment with assistance from the Department of Agriculture, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust.

Project coordinator Alistair Homer is confident that the arrival of the marksmen will assist in achieving the project’s objective of reducing feral livestock in and around the Centre Hills. He states that this management initiative will help to preserve key species such as the Montserrat orchid, mountain chicken, galliwasp and the Montserrat oriole.

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