New Customs cargo scanner aims to reduce risk of runaway critters

Cayman’s Customs and Border Control team is set to fire-up a new container scanner in the coming weeks which may assist in avoiding any repeats of the runaway raccoon situation that culminated earlier this month.

CBC and Labour Ministry Chief Officer Wesley Howell, speaking on the 17 Nov. episode of the Cayman Compass Facebook talk show ‘The Resh Hour,’ said that once the scanner comes online, importation risks will be reduced.

The new container scanner, he said, “has the technology in it that would allow it to recognise vegetable matter, recognise living matter… different types of material in there match that to manifest so that folks, without opening up the container, examine what’s in there. We think that’s going to do well for the compliance and our security overall, for being able to deliver on that”.

Howell said it is hoped that the scanner will be powered up within the next two weeks and run through training into the early parts of December.

Late last month two juvenile male raccoons were discovered in a shipping container at Foster Republix branch. One of the raccoons was trapped at the time, but the other escaped.

That raccoon was discovered days later near the area it had first been found.

Samples taken from the first raccoon were found to be rabies free. Results from samples taken from the second raccoon are still pending.

While the CBC team is looking forward to the new scanner, CBC deputy director Kevin Walton says, with 258,000 imports for the year so far arriving in Cayman, such situations may be not be completely unavoidable.

“When 98% of what we consume is imported into these islands there’s a good chance that we’re going to have that risk and we continue to try to mitigate that in partnership with the Department of Agriculture, in addition to the way in which cargo is received in the U S and delivered to the port. So we work closely with the shipping companies, as well as the Port Authority,” Walton said when he appeared on the show with Howell.

He added that with just two raccoons circumventing the system in the 34 years of his service with Customs, “I think we are doing very well”.

CBC, he said, has a wide array of tasks, which is not just about facilitating passengers and goods, but “it’s about protecting our borders and the environment”.

“We continue to do it on that intelligence-led risk management approach, sharing of information and intelligence among organizations and working together in partnership with organisations like the Department of Agriculture, Port Authority, the airlines, the shipping companies, as well as, our law enforcement counterparts like the police here in the island and our overseas counterparts… so hopefully we will not get any more raccoons for this for this year,” he said.