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Dr Victor Gongora, President, Veterinary Association of Belize
"To us, it's like the tip of the iceberg and it has been ignored for a long time, all the inhumane actions against animals. And unfortunately, we feel that there is no law in Belize that can seriously address animal welfare issues in Belize. We have 2 legislation in place that I know. We have the dog act, we have the pounds act, and I think we have the cruelty to animals act. But these we were done, you know, we are a British Colony and the British are very much for animal welfare so these laws were put in place since 1857 and I think just in 1958 they were kinda revisited. But you can see that they were long ago so they were very outdated and as we have seen, the commissioner saying that you charged a person $100 for an offense so really they are outdated and we need to address it as a national concern."

"As a vet you just have to open your eyes and see it everywhere. You drive from here, San Ignacio, to Belmopan, you see, you just look at the pastures, you look at the yards, you see animals being neglected all the time. This is irresponsible or just people not knowing any better and so if we do any legislation, we'll have to put a lot of education into it."

"We also know that when animals are abused, the people abusing them are also a problem and that sometimes we see patients in the clinic that are abused and that can point to domestic abuse as well so we'll see that it's not just an easy problem to deal with, it's multiple factors involved in animal abuse so I think the legislation is a point to start so that we can be responsible about ownership and we can have a structure and a system in place to address animal welfare concerns in the country."

They are now calling on the Minister of Agriculture to take the matter to Cabinet.