KINGSTON, Jamaica — Parrots, hawks, owls, crocodiles, snakes and other animals displaced by Hurricane Melissa have found a home at the Hope Zoo Preservation Foundation as a team of volunteers and veterinarians work to help them recover enough to be released back into the wild.
Many of the rescued animals are endemic to Jamaica, found nowhere else in the world, including the Jamaican yellow-billed and black-billed parrots, the Jamaican owl and Jamaican boa or yellow snake.
“A lot of the animals either come to us from patrons, people from the public, NEPA [National Environment and Planning Agency] responding to calls or sometimes I have to go out on the road to respond to a call of maybe an injured bird on the ground and we’ll go collect it and bring it back,” Hope Zoo General Curator Joey Brown told Observer Online on Wednesday.
“We work real closely with the Ministry of Agriculture, with NEPA, with the police as well,” Brown said. “A lot of times, if they go into someone’s house for whatever reason and [the homeowner] has illegal pets, where those animals don’t have to be euthanised, we can bring them here,” Brown explained.
During Observer Online’s visit to the facility, Brown identified animals rescued days and weeks after Hurricane Melissa including a Jamaican parakeet believed to have been thrown from its nest during the storm and a Jamaican black billed parrot, which he described as one of his favorites, citing the striking colour and rarity of the endemic bird.
