Trinidad's Dazzling National Bird Is Served Up as Bush Meat
As the government works to protect the scarlet ibis from its own citizens, it has increased poaching fines a hundredfold.
Port of Spain, Trinidad“What would you like to know about the scarlet ibis?” Kenny Rattan asked as he stepped out of a black sedan.
First of all, I was curious: What does the national bird of Trinidad taste like?
Rattan had agreed to meet me on a dirt road in the middle of an abandoned sugarcane plantation so we could talk privately about his days poaching ibises in nearby Caroni Swamp, where thousands of the birds feed, nest, and roost. Those days are in the past for him, Rattan said. “I learned my lesson. Now I tell people: Don’t do it. I want to protect them. I stopped hunting because I want my grandchildren to see them.”
It was legal to hunt the scarlet ibis
