A 43-year-old White­land res­i­dent was fined $4,000 for il­le­gal­ly hunt­ing an igua­na and lappe af­ter the clo­sure of the 2024 to 2025 Hunt­ing Sea­son on March 1.

Dwight Hack­shaw plead­ed guilty yes­ter­day af­ter ap­pear­ing vir­tu­al­ly be­fore Mag­is­trate Alexan­der Princes in the Cou­va Mag­is­trates Court.    

The car­cass­es of the igua­na and lappe were shown to the court, as well Hack­shaw’s dog which was al­so de­tained fol­low­ing his ar­rest.

He was charged with hunt­ing the an­i­mals in the month of March, con­trary to Reg­u­la­tion 2(1) (b) of the Con­ser­va­tion of Wild Life (Pro­hi­bi­tion Against Hunt­ing Dur­ing Cer­tain Pe­ri­ods) Reg­u­la­tions made un­der Sec­tion 24 of the Con­ser­va­tion of Wild Life Act Chap­ter 67:01. Hack­shaw was ar­rest­ed on March 8 dur­ing a joint ex­er­cise with Forestry Game War­dens, Prae­di­al Lar­ce­ny and EM­BD Unit.

Based on the in­for­ma­tion re­ceived, the of­fi­cers went to TPD Road, Tabaquite, where they found Hack­shaw hunt­ing and in pos­ses­sion of an igua­na and lappe. 

He was fined $2,000 on each charge or in de­fault three months in prison. He has four months to pay the fine.  The mag­is­trate al­so or­dered the car­cass­es be de­stroyed and Hack­shaw’s dog and cut­lass be re­turned to him. 

The ex­er­cise in­clud­ed Game War­den II Richard Ram­lo­gan, PC Har­ris, PC Pat­too and Sgt Hamil­ton.