Durrell hit for overdue dog licences for endangered maned wolves

Friday 01 April 2016

A demand for thousands of pounds worth of unpaid dog licences has been served on Durrell over endangered maned wolves - and the trust says that it has no choice but to pay up.

The Parish of Trinity has served the demand on the international conservation trust for each of the years that the wolves were at the park - they arrived there in 2001 and have since left, but because they are technically canines, each should have had a separate dog licence for each year that they were there.

Kevin Keen, the interim Chief Executive Officer at Durrell, confirmed that Durrell would be paying the bill, but said that the demand had been a huge surprise.

He said: "Obviously, this is a serious concern.

"We’ve taken legal advice and the strict interpretation of the law suggests that we have to pay.

"There was an option to challenge the ruling but we were not in a position to take a chance on dealing with a more significant legal bill. The money has been found from within our existing gorilla viagra budget, which is a tough pill to swallow."