‘Justice for Wilbur’ campaigners have started a petition calling for stronger legal protection of animals in the Cayman Islands.
Wilbur was a dog who died on 5 Nov., a couple of weeks after being discovered starving and emaciated in Prospect.
The petition, which was launched over the weekend, had garnered more than 700 signatures by Monday afternoon. Its target is 1,000 signatures.
It states, “By signing this petition, you are advocating for a safer environment for all creatures on our islands and sending a clear message that animal abuse will not be tolerated.”
The campaigners say Cayman’s Animals Act does not provide sufficient protection for animals from abuse and mistreatment, and is calling on the government to revise and strengthen the law, “ensuring that those who harm animals face appropriate legal consequences”.
The petition notes, “This lack of stringent regulations has led to numerous instances of animal cruelty, which often go unpunished due to legal loopholes.”
Owner arrested
The Department of Agriculture has confirmed that Wilbur’s owner has been arrested and charged with animal cruelty. He has yet to appear in court.
After being alerted by a member of the public, the Department of Agriculture took Wilbur to its kennels, after which the dog was placed in the care of animal charity One Dog At A Time and taken to a veterinary clinic for treatment.
He survived for over two weeks under the care of The Veterinary Clinic in Savannah, before succumbing to the effects of the starvation he had endured.
Under the Animals Act, it is illegal in Cayman to abuse an animal, but the law in the past has not been strongly enforced, and there have been very few cases of animal cruelty before the courts over the years.
The law states that any person who intentionally makes an animal unnecessarily suffer; works an unfit animal; administers poison to an animal; operates on an animal without due care and humanity; tethers, confines or keeps an animal as to cause unnecessary suffering; or abandons an animal; commits an offence of animal cruelty and is liable for prosecution.
Anyone convicted of committing animal cruelty is liable to a $500 fine or to six months’ imprisonment.
‘Inundated with calls’ about abuse and neglect
In a statement about Wilbur’s case, issued last week, Caroline Johnston of One Dog At A Time, said, “Our furry and feathered friends cannot speak for themselves and they need help. Every animal on island deserves the basic requirements, set out in the Five Freedoms: Freedom from Hunger and Thirst, Freedom from Discomfort, Freedom from Pain, Injury or Disease, Freedom to express Normal Behaviour, Freedom from Fear and Distress.
“Wilbur was failed by his owners in all of the Five Freedoms.
“The Government need to take action. The residents of this island need to take action.”
She said her organisation has been seeing more cases of animal neglect and abuse, and in the last few months has been “inundated with calls”.
Among the reports she has been seeing are dogs with no shelter during storms being tied so tight they cannot move themselves to safety; puppies with their tails and ears cut off with machetes; dogs thrown out onto the streets “as they’re old and then being replaced with a puppy”; and dogs abandoned in houses with no food, water or electricity.
She said they’ve also encountered “puppies so hungry that they eat sticks and sand to try and survive” and dogs tied to trees in their yard being hanged after they’ve tried to escape by jumping the fence.
There have also been cases of puppies being discarded in plastic bags, dumped on the road or thrown into public bins and left to die, she said, as well as dogs being overbred with their own offspring, leading to deformities and other health conditions.
Other cases have involved dogs being left in the sun with no food or water whose skin gets burned and cracked; dogs with hot oil poured over them to ‘kill fleas and ticks’, and dogs used for fighting.
“’This can’t happen here, not in Cayman’, I hear you cry,” Johnston said, “but it does!”
Urging people to sign the petition and to get involved with making Cayman a safer place for animals, Johnston said, “Don’t make Wilbur’s death just a statistic. Make his death matter.”
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