Director of the local Forestry Department Mr. Fitzgerald Providence during has emphasized the danger that the mongoose and armadillo pose to the ecosystem here in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
Mr. Providence during an interview on NBC Radio provided some background on the introduction of the mongoose to SVG, and how it has been a problem since its introduction.
“The mongoose was introduced in the old plantation days to get rid of the snakes but then we realized our snakes are not harmful and also we have an endemic snake here, we don’t want the mongoose to eat out the snake.
We saw after the volcanic eruption mongoose were the only thing you were seeing, because they’re vermin, they eat rotting material, they just are not good for the environment, so they are not protected by law,” he said.
The Forestry Department’s Director also spoke about the armadillo which was introduced to the local ecosystem in the late 1960s. Mr. Providence noted that this creature has caused the toppling of trees and the destabilization of slopes.
“They go through the forest, they root and they topple trees because they look for the grubs and so on in the tree roots and they destabilize the slopes and they cause trees to topple, even on the volcano slopes, we realize the armadillo is one of the first animals we saw back which is not also very good.
We’ve been working over the years to remove from the partially protected list and put it under vermin also because we realize the danger to the environment,” Mr. Providence said.
Mr. Providence said that the forestry department continues to work to have the armadillo listed as vermin because of the destructive effect that it has on the environment, noting that an introduced species with no natural predator will always be problematic.
