THE VETERINARY Department said yesterday it was clamping down on import licences for exotic pets following an increasing demand for monkeys, snakes and other reptiles.
Senior official Klitos Andreou said the veterinary services had learned its lessons in the past from being relaxed on the import of exotic animals and was also now subject to a host of international conventions for the protection of various species.
“We are very concerned about some non-indigenous species and we are very strict about this,” Andreou said.
The importation of any non-indigenous species must comply with local animal welfare laws, the laws for the protection of the environment, the Washington Convention on dangerous species, the Convention on Biodiversity and the Berne Convention.
The department has a special committee that examines all applications for import licences and uses all the legislation as a guideline.
Last year, 341 dogs, nearly 250,000 tropical fish and over 3,000 exotic birds were imported into Cyprus. Snakes and lizards are also very much in demand, and applicants often ask for licences for pythons, piranhas and monkeys, which Andreou said would not be easily given to individuals or pet shops, but could be given for scientific reasons, or to wildlife parks, aquariums or the Limassol zoo. Such animals cannot be imported for the pleasure of individuals, for exploitation or if they pose a threat to local species.
“We have had a lot of requests for snakes and other reptiles, which we turned down except for a few cases. We know that with parks, zoos and other organisations the animals will be kept in an enclosure and will be kept in good condition,” he said.
He said the department has learned from past experience that giving out licences for these types of pets to individuals could be disastrous.
“We know someone we allowed to import a python and we found it in a restaurant with some visitors taking photos,” Andreou said. “If you ask to import any pet and are granted a licence just to keep it at home for your own use but then you take it to a public place and exploit it, this is unacceptable for us. We don’t want to repeat the mistake of over countries and end up with dancing bears.”
In another incident, Andreou said that three years ago the department had allowed someone to import 100 iguanas. “From our enquiries we found that only two survived,” he said. “Shall we keep on with this situation? Shall we keep on with unjustified requests to import thousands and thousands of turtles and then you find them in the dams and then you find out that at the same time that the local turtles are now a limited number after the imported ones survived and dominated the local ones.”
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
