The environmental Health Department is urging the public to report incidents of roadkill as soon as possible to prevent the dead animals from beginning to decompose, which makes it much harder to remove and causes health problems.
In the past few weeks, motorists have been complaining of the number of roadkill that they have come across while driving along Providenciales’ busiest thoroughfares such as the Leeward Highway and the Millennium Highway.
They said at times the dead animals have been there for days before being removed, and at times some remain along roadways until they are flattened out by the wheels of passing motor vehicles.
When contacted, Kenrick Neely, Director for the Environmental Health Department, told NewslineTCI that his office, once being alerted about such incidents, would readily contact the relevant individuals tasked with removing them.
“Once persons contact the office, we get the contractors to remove the roadkill off the streets,” he said, stating that one of the reasons some of the roadkill remain uncollected for longer that desired has to do with the Environmental Health Department getting the information late or not at all.
“…But if we are not aware, yes, they might be there until someone from the (Environmental Health) passes, and then having to call the contractors and say, ‘can you please move this?’” Neely said.
Another reason dead animals are made to linger along our roadways had to do with Contractors not working in that particular area on that specific day. He said refuse collectors are the contractors responsible for removing dead animals from our roadways.
“The refuse collectors (removing dead animals off the streets), it is part of their requirement. He said dog or a cat might be killed along the Leeward Highway, but the reason it might not be scooped up having to do with the contractors might be working in Kew Town that day, and that no one reported it to the Environmental Health Department.
“Once we get the information about a roadkill, we would then pass on that information to the contractors, to have them remove it immediately,” he said.
In recent times, Providenciales has seen an increase in animals wandering along the roadways. Once it was just dogs and cats, but now there have been regular sightings of herd of goats, especially along the Leeward Highway, especially in the vicinity of the Beaches roundabout.
A number of residents have taken to social media to report on the goats, who they said often invade their properties and eat their flowers, fruit, vegetables and other plants.
One resident remarked: “the people who own these goats have no consideration for other people’s property. How you could allow your goats to walk onto other people’s places and devour their plants is beyond me. These people need to build a pen for their goats so they would not be nuisance to other people.”
Oftentimes these goats cause traffic snarls along the Leeward Highway as they frolic in the road, only canter when motorists start to blare their horns.