I think for me, I was already a veterinarian at the end of my career looking after animals, so I deal with animals all day, and people who own animals obviously are people who care about animals. So I think it's kind of a natural interest for most veterinarians ? animal welfare, animal issues ? and I got involved in Canada with the Humane Society there, and was asked on a few times to testify in cases.

I got an understanding of legislation and some of the difficulties involved with prosecuting cases in Canada. So, it seemed natural when I got back here that I would become involved with the whole local animal welfare scene, which I think is something that follows on from my career, as a pretty natural progression.

: When I came back to Bermuda to work, which I think was in 1991, it was about a year after I'd already been on the committee. I'd been involved with the SPCA working off the island in Canada. I was asked if I was interested in coming on board, and soon after becoming just a member, they asked if I would be shelter chairman. I said yes, so I think its probably been since 1992. As long as I can remember. I was lucky growing up in Southampton, and having a lot of property. We had animals, and we were near a dairy, and the neighbours had animals, so I grew up with rabbits and chickens, and we had a dog and a cat.

One way or another, an animal was always following me home. My parents were very supportive of that. Not all parents like having house full of animals. They would also chip in sometimes and help me feed the rabbits, and my mother helped me while I was in school with raising them, so I think I come from a family where animals played an important role.

I think very early on, it was something I was interested in, and when I was 14 I met a veterinarian who would come to Bermuda and we struck up a relationship with him as a family friend. I went back and spent a month in Canada with him working when I was about 14, and I think that's when it really sort of triggered my interest in it as a career.

Obviously as a vet, you're pretty much incriminating yourself if you say you prefer one animal to another. I love all animals, but I'm probably more of a dog person. I have a Labrador ? I'm very fond of labs, I think they're great dogs for Bermuda.

I also like horses as well, very fond of them. They're probably the animals I had the most exposure to in terms of growing up, and through work. But you pretty much deal with whatever comes through the door. We get turtles, birds, chickens ? we usually don't have to deal with a lot of snakes, scorpions, and tarantulas.

Yes, I grew up here, born and raised here, my father and grandparents were Bermudian. So yes, I've always lived here. I was away for school, and I worked for three years in Canada after I graduated from med school. But you know, this has always been my home, my family's here, and it was always my intention to come back, and practise here.

We've had some good conversations with them, in reference to the carriages in Hamilton, and I think we will continue to try and nurture that relationship along further. St. George's, we don't really know where that's going at present.

Interestingly enough, I've seen they've introduced a $100 fee for carriages for St. George's as a controlled licence. It's kind of interesting that they were able to introduce that very quickly, but haven't been able to get a shelter done.

But they seem to be interested, I wouldn't get our hopes up just yet, but we plan to get back into conversation with them and see if we can get that back into gear and actually get some progress there.

That's right, I was given a name and number for someone to contact, but unfortunately, I've been very busy since I spoke to the Mayor (of St. George's), and I haven't had a chance to get in touch with the gentleman yet.

I think he's an individual they feel might be able to help scout a place out that may be suitable, or at least explain to me some of the issues that they're having. Obviously, we're just keen to get something up and running there as quickly as possible.

We obviously heard about that in the paper, you know. Obviously it was a really horrific incident for all involved. I don't know all the details of exactly what happened in terms of pointing fingers or assigning blame, and I wouldn't want to do that.

It's just very tragic any time you have any type of accident, certainly where animals are involved, for animal lovers and people who have concern for animal welfare, it is an issue. But the combination now of horses and traffic in Bermuda has really been an area of concern for us.

Fortunately, with the trail rides, for the most part, they're not on the road, unlike the carriage drivers who are using the road pretty much 100 per cent of the time. So, the SPCA does have some serious concerns about that combination of the traffic, the roads, and the way people drive now.

And certainly we would appeal to people who are operating vehicles on the road to take caution if they see animals, whether they're people riding horses, whether it's a carriage, whether it's animals on the roadside, even ducks crossing the road, to just slow down and take time and give people plenty of space, because we just know that animals won't react like vehicles. You know, they don't have the same control.

Yes, well, you know, someone knows what happened, and the story will come out in the works, and our concern is that people just take the time and give animals the space they need ? they don't know how animals react. Some animals will bolt when they're scared, some will freeze. So, we do sort of tell the people to take their time and pay attention, and give the animals as much space as they need, increase the chance of safety, and decrease the chance of an accident.

That was the one thing I thought you were going to ask, and I probably couldn't answer. There are a lot of issues the SPCA is juggling, many issues at any one time, and they are obviously seasonal issues right now.

The heat is a big issue for us with animals, people are taking dogs out on exercises ? they're used to walking the dogs for an hour, or whatever. Once we get into May, June, July, the heat and humidity kicks in, and then you start having problems with heat stress with animals.

That's a big concern for us. Animals that are tied or left out in the sun with no access to shade is a big concern for us, certainly the carriage industry, and it's the peak time now with the tourist ships in, that's the major concern.

You know, the fund-raising, that also keeps our funds up so we can continue to do the work we're doing . . . we're just constantly dealing with issues all year round, and I could probably give you a list three pages long of things that are high priority.

Certainly, our goal is to keep animal welfare on the front bar, and try to satisfy people's concerns for animal issues that they have, that they bring up with us.

But I would say right now it's kitten season, we have a number of kittens being born, there is still a problem with feral cats on the island, people who have cats and aren't responsible, they don't get them spayed or neutered. We get flooded with kittens this time of year. So we're processing those kittens, spaying them, vaccinating them, getting them ready for adoption.

We have the group BFAB (Bermuda Feline Assistance Bureau) to do the spaying, they're doing a great job. But they're low on manpower and funds as well, so it's hard for them to do it. So we need people to be responsible, and if they have an animal, if they have a cat, they must have them spayed and neutered.

If there are stray cats around that are reproducing they need to get in touch with BFAB or whatever, and once you have one litter, it won't be long before those kittens are out reproducing too, so the problem very easily grows.

That's the big thing we're working on now with the small animals, getting these kittens tidied up and organised for adoption. But, yes, there are plenty of things to keep us busy. Legislation is probably one of the big ones.

Animal legislation is very scant, and quite liberally interpreted. We're working on trying to get some tighter controls on legislation, so we can get some teeth into the actual Animal Welfare Act. So, that's a long-term goal.

: A lot of it is supply and demand, and certainly one of the things that we see at the shelter in terms of dogs, is that the tightening up the Dogs' Act, has affected a lot of the local breeding ? and a lot of the accidental breeding, which is actually a good thing.

We're not overrun with stray dogs or cats. Most of the dogs we get that are not wanted or are illegal are often pit-bull types, and a lot of the public doesn't want a dog, in spite of the fact that some of these dogs are great pets.

So the choice, locally, has dwindled somewhat. There aren't a lot of people breeding locally. There are some, and those dogs usually pass on very quickly. So if you're looking for a dog, you pretty much have to go overseas, and I think it's a market thing.

Bermudians have been buying dogs overseas for a long time. Obviously they're willing to pay the price, and if you don't have a big option for shopping around, you have to pay the price that's pretty much put on the table.

That's a great concern, because it is now a pretty big financial investment getting a dog from overseas, and if you have health problems, just because you paid $5,000 doesn't mean you couldn't have found a healthy dog at the pound for $100. So, when people are investing that type of money, sometimes it causes issues that the dog needs . . . health insurance, whatever. But it is a concern. It's harder now to find a dog locally and inexpensively.

And that's a worry, because there are a lot of people who'd love to have an animal, lots of kids who want to grow up with a pet. But for a lot of people, to fork out $5,000 for a dog isn't financially a possibility.

Yes, again, that's one of our slightly longer-term projects. Over the years we've been doing quite a bit of renovation on the property to try to upgrade and improve the facilities both for the animals and for staff, as well, and make it a little user-friendlier.

We have a building that was an observation building that's currently in need of some serious work, and our intention is down the road to try and replace that building. What we would have in that building would be a proper hospital rig.

It would be a hospital that we could keep animals that are unwell, so we can isolate them, so we can keep our medications and stuff safe. There'll be wards for cats and kittens, and also for dogs. The idea is that this building will be where the animals go to begin with to make sure they're healthy, make sure they're adoptable, get them vaccinated, get the spaying and neutering done, and then they would be moved into the private building for adoption.

So that would allow us to isolate. Right now, when new animals come in, we have no choice but to get them in with the others. We try to separate them as much as we can, but if we're full of dogs, and we're full of cats, it's difficult for us to isolate, and for the health of the animals, for disease control, and it just makes good practical sense to have a separate area where we can keep animals during the first vaccination period that we need.

Also if we have any animals that we take as cruelty cases, we can keep those animals isolated from the others while they're recovering, or waiting for cold days. And also, we're hoping to have an office for the inspector, an education room, and some much-needed storage.

The goal we're looking to try and get some funds together, we might go out and do a bit of a capital campaign for it, that's something we'd like to look at doing down the road ? very soon, if we can. It all depends on our finances.

We have that in November. It's one of the events that's organised through the shelter as a fund-raiser. We have a few fund-raising events during the year. We have the tag day in April, we do an animal expo in September, and in November we do the 'Paws to the Park' dog-walk.

We invite people to ? I think there's three different long walks that you can do, you can bring your dogs and kids along, it's kind of a social day out . . . and we do a fund-raising walk, and it's a bit like the End-to-End, but the doggie version, and the idea is to generate funds for the SPCA, but also to have a fun day out. So it's one of the events on our calendar.

I don't know. Certainly the trip up to Canada. I stayed up months with the vet up there, and he did a lot of equine work. I think that really was a watershed moment for me ? being in another country, and being out.

He worked in Toronto in the Calvin area, and it was beautiful countryside, nowhere near as developed as it is now, and it was the first experience I had with the rural world, with the people and the animals, and that was really a great month.

I think that really stands out in my mind as something I really enjoyed. Since then, there have been all sorts of events that are memorable, some hilarious, and some tragic, which is all part of the business.

So I think that was definitely a point where I felt an animal-loving career was definitely in the cards. Things pretty much fell into the place. In terms of Bermuda, animal welfare is obviously a big part of my life, and you just stress to people to support the animal welfare-related issues and groups, whether it is BFAB or SPCA or whatever.

People are very good at turning their eyes away, and they don't see stuff. They don't see the dog, or the horse, or whatever, and it's in the neighbourhood, and they're concerned about ? you know it's amazing that people would drive by every day and see an animal that's in distress or in a bad situation, and just not wanting to get involved.

And obviously with the SPCA they can contact us, they can call in anonymously, they can call Crime-Stoppers as well, and other crimes such as dog-fighting, they don't want to be involved, they're afraid that something is going to happen to them if they come forward.

It can be done completely anonymously. And obviously, we need the support of the public if the SPCA is to be effective. It's a small group of people trying to do a lot of work, and we need all the help we can get.

Well, we're always looking at anyone who runs a charity in Bermuda nowadays. We're all facing the same challenges, the cost of doing business in Bermuda is going up all the time, so that's difficult. We're competing with many more charities now, and there are some very glamorous charities out there that are fun . . . golf tournaments, and whatever, and they all do great work.

It's difficult for people ? you know, you donate this, and there are so many raffle tickets you buy, for so many different causes. It's tough, it's a competitive market, and you know it's changed, and people's focuses change.

One year it may be very child-orientated, the next year it may be abused women, or drug rehabilitation. They're all very important things, and we recognise that there are a number of charities on the island that do great work.

Our problem, I guess, is that we are involved with so many things. It's a big undertaking, not a lot of what we do is glamorous, there's a lot of cleaning out cages, walking dogs . . . I think it's a very satisfying charity to be involved with, because you can see the effect immediately.

There's a lot of areas that we can use help in, whether its volunteers for events, volunteers for fund-raising, coming to the shelter and helping us there with animals, with people who come in just to help socialise, who come in for an hour with a kitten or a cat and just get it more accustomed to being handled or whatever.

So there's a lot of different areas where people can help. Financially, it's tough. We try to do fund-raisers as often as we can. We have a small committee ? a small committee ? and it's hard.

You're competing with other events quite often when you're trying to do your stuff. So, it's difficult for us to provide all the services that we do. We run an animal shelter, so we have at any time ten to 15 dogs, anywhere from five to six cats up to 30-35 cats. We had 30 kittens in last week that all had to be vaccinated. So, there's medical bills, there's human bills, there's the staff bills, there's the maintenance bills, we're out there trying to campaign for legislation changes.

We have the Government and the Corporation issues. There are all these things going on at any given time. Fish issues, dog issues, cat issues ? we ask people to get involved with the international issues, the tsunami, what's happening to the animals out there, people on the Internet dealing with stuff.

It's a massive undertaking to try and keep things running there, and also to expand our services, and do more. We'd love to do more with assisting people's spaying and neutering, it's just a matter of managing the funds that we have as well as we can, trying to fund-raise as well as we can, and convincing people to be generous and help us to do what we need to do.

The people who are out there that are looking to volunteer, looking to assist; it's great, because we could always use the manpower. But if we had ten companies, or ten people who felt generous, and they were willing to give us a good chunk of change every year, that would take the pressure off. We have some very generous donators that are very good to us, and we certainly appreciate it.

We all hope things get better, and certainly for us, and it's true, you know, you tend to focus on the depressing ? trying to raise money, meetings not going the way you want, horses killed on the road.

We all have the daily traumas and dramas. But we also have the great adoption stories. People adopt a dog, or a cat, or whatever else, and they'll send us pictures every year around Christmas, you know.

We have a dog in England, a dog in America, a dog in Canada, people call to thank us for what we do. We see a lot of results of what we do, and I think that's very, very satisfying. It's also getting together with like-minded people. We have our events, kids, where people are walking dogs or whatever it is, and it's nice to be around people who share your philosophy about animal welfare. So, there's plenty of good stuff going on as well.

Well, you always hope that you're not going to have things like this happen, but the nature of animals ? and it doesn't matter whether they're horses, or dogs, or cats ? if they're outdoors, you don't know what they're going to do.

We see them in the business all the time, cats scratch, dogs bite, they get nervous, animals fall, they jump off things ? so accidents with animals happen. Some of them are more preventable than others, and certainly as the SPCA, we feel that the animals working on the road are certainly at a high risk. The traffic is getting heavier, the traffic is getting faster, the calibre of driving is pathetic in many cases, and people do some of the most ridiculous things. If you take all of those already existing complications, and you add a horse, or an animal that's unpredictable and doesn't behave like you think it might, it just really adds fuel to the fire.

So, we're very concerned about this recent accident, this is just not the first horse that's been in an accident. We've had lots of accidents involving animals over the years; it's just that most of them don't make the paper. But I'm afraid every year there's an accident involving a horse one way or another, whether it's the carriage or someone on the road, and we certainly are very concerned in Hamilton with the amount of traffic that's going on, that there is a high likelihood of an accident.

You know, this is the business. There have been horses and carriages in the city for longer than I can remember. And yet, it is, it's the business. These animals are no longer carrying vegetables to the farm, or the city.

People don't use them for transport any longer, it's strictly a tourist attraction, it's a ride, so there's definitely an economic component to what these animals do. For me, that makes it even sadder, the life some of these horses have. I mean these horses work hard, and during the summer they work hard. It's hot, it's noisy, it's a tough environment, some of these horses are older, some of them have health issues, and they're going up and down on a very hot tarmac every day.

Not all the drivers give the horses the break they're supposed to. They say they do, but we know they don't. And then, by the end of the day, they go back to the stables, and in many cases the facilities they go back to are abysmal, and that's what's very sad. We like to think the horses are out there working for a living, they have a wonderful winter when the tourists aren't here, out in fields eating grass or whatever ? that's not the case. For a lot of these horses, they're stuck inside, they're tied to trees, and looked after really marginally.

Some of these guys, these operators, are just scared of doing the minimum. They're not quite cruel, just above the border, and they've been doing this for years. And they say they're great, they love their animals, everything's fabulous, and the bottom line is that it's just not true.

If they truly believe that, then that's pretty sad, that they call themselves horse people. It's been a problem for years; it's nothing new, many of them have gotten away with it for a long time, because the legislation is written in a way that makes it very difficult to prosecute them.

It's very, very frustrating for us. As the SPCA, we're charged to look after animals, and it's very difficult for us to do what needs to be done, because we don't have the tools to do it properly. But, we will continue despite not always being successful, and we will continue to soldier on and try to make a difference.

It may take a month, it may take five years, but we're committed to hanging in there, and doing what we can to make change.