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Dead animals
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Posted on Apr 13 2006
Kudos to the Marianas Visitors Authority’s Parks and Recreation crew, the Saipan Mayor’s Office crew, and the equally hardworking crew from Public Works who are out there everyday bush-cutting and clearing and pruning trees and shrubberies and keeping the island and the environment clean and beautiful and green year round. Even community workers from some legislators’ offices are out there with their bush cutters doing the same thing to beautify and clean the environment.
They do this all over the island and you would notice it, too, if you would just slow down enough to appreciate the hard work these folks put into keeping the island clean and beautiful.
But who is in charge of removing dead dogs and cats from roads and streets? Maybe these agencies, together with the Department of Public Health and Division of Environmental Quality, could strike up a deal or work out some arrangement whereby dead animals could be safely and promptly removed from roads and streets, instead of being left to rot and decompose right there and posing a health threat to all of us.
I am not talking about dead rodents or frogs or some other such small animals or birds. On the main road in Tanapag, right in front of the school and right in front of a school bus stop where school kids congregate as they wait for their bus, I have driven by the carcass of a dead dog for the last two weeks. The carcass has naturally been undergoing the different stages of decomposition and every time I drive by I feel as though I was watching some time-elapsed photograph of the dead dog, having seen it from the very first day when it was still nice and fluffy and looking like it had just laid down for an afternoon nap, to when flies and maggots swarmed over it, to now with bones beginning to bare themselves.
I am sure this scene plays itself out elsewhere on island.
With so many people bush-cutting and pruning trees and cleaning and otherwise trying to do the right thing, it is surprising that no one has seen fit to have dead dogs and cats promptly removed from main roads and streets. Perhaps with Environment Week coming up next week, these agencies can finally come to an agreement on this.
Joe Asanuma
Tanapag, Saipan
