MONTEGO BAY, St James — Changes may come soon to how stray and unmanaged animals are dealt with across the second city, deputy mayor of Montego Bay Councillor Richard Vernon has said.

According to Vernon, if a resolution that was recently brought to the St James Municipal Corporation is approved by the Ministry of Local Government and Community Development, residents of Montego Bay will benefit greatly from the nuisances caused by stray animals.

He told the Jamaica Observer that the resolution speaks to the re-establishment of a pound under the Pound Act and the declaration of a restricted area under the Keeping of Animals Act.

The deputy mayor explained that these concerns regarding unmanaged and stray animals were brought to light by disgruntled residents of the Rhyne Park community. He stated that a meeting was had to discuss the discomfort of the citizens and the municipal corporation is now seeking to mitigate the issue.

“Coming out of that meeting, we decided to make a resolution to re-establish a pound because we had a pound many years ago. However, it was not only to re-establish the pound under the Pound Act but to declare the Montego Bay area a restricted area for the keeping of some animals under the Keeping of Animals Act,” said Vernon.

He pointed out that the Keeping of Animals Act refers to animals such as “horse, gelding, fowl, mule – those types of animals, not necessarily dogs”.

As it currently stands, the Local Governance Act is the law that speaks to prohibiting or regulating “the keeping of dogs”; however, Vernon told the Sunday Observer that, that has yet to be activated.

“In the Local Governance Act, there’s a reference to dogs under Section 51, in terms of setting up our regulation, but there is no regulation to activate that section of the Act. So we are really still silent on the dog-keeping part of the Keeping of Animal Act,” Vernon explained.

Just last year, Councillor Dwight Crawford (Jamaica Labour Party, Spring Garden Division) warned residents against the rearing of chickens in the St James community of Bogue Village. He cited that citizens expressed concerns over the unsanitary conditions in which the remains of chickens were being disposed.

At the same time, the deputy mayor said the municipal corporation’s plans will help to regulate how residents monitor and house their animals to promote a safer and cleaner Montego Bay. This will come in the form of a permit being issued to house these animals.

“What we hope to achieve is once people are going to keep animals within the Montego Bay space, they are permitted to do so. To obtain such a permit you would need to provide the necessary housing for the animal. So if you’re going to keep a pig, it must be kept in a manner that it will not develop into a nuisance to your neighbour and other members of your community,” he told the Sunday Observer.

“If you are going to keep a goat, you have to show that you can keep the goat in such a way that will not cause it to be a nuisance or become a stray animal that will cause accidents and damage to people’s property. The same goes for cows and the other animals,” he added.

The proposed restricted area will cover the proposed parameters for the city limits.

“From Reading to Greenwood, and a similar route of the parameter road and the communities within that space,” Vernon pointed out.

As it relates to the re-establishment of a pound in Montego Bay, Vernon stated that stray and unmanaged animals will be impounded to alleviate the stress being experienced by citizens.

Once you start to allow your animals to stray, then we will have to impound them, and there are rules that govern how you retrieve the animal after they’re impounded and there are penalties associated with those rules,” the deputy mayor said.

While emphasis has been placed on the keeping of livestock by the different legislations, Vernon told the Sunday Observer that the keeping of dogs has also been a part of the conversation, though nothing has materialised.

“It is something that we are looking at. Some time ago, a few representatives up to the level of Parliament were in debates about the keeping of dangerous animals and such. I think it stemmed from some issues surrounding the dogs, such as pit bull, rottweiler, and those dogs that they regarded as dangerous animals, and their attack on people and how they would manage those animals,” said Vernon.

He continued, “But that is a different conversation. Now at a local level, we haven’t done any work in that area in terms of looking at how we treat dogs and how we provide the rules to manage them and to ensure that we prevent any event of persons being bitten by a dog.

“It is something that we can look at and something that we will be looking at after we get this resolution to the ministry,” the deputy mayor told the Sunday Observer.

In the meantime, Vernon said that the final touches are being made before the resolution is submitted to the ministry.