Jane Mather has been a champion of animal welfare in The Bahamas for over 25 years. She was a founding member of Animal Require Kindness and its President for a number of years. She is a founding member of Animal Advocates and its current President.
She has promoted spay/neuter programmes to enable financially challenged caregivers to have their pets spayed or neutered. She has been responsible for the rescue and re-homing of countless dogs and cats and has visited schools to educate students on animal welfare.
She has served as a member of various committees on animal welfare convened by the Department of Agriculture. She arranged for Animal Control Unit staff to receive training in the humane treatment of animals and she has worked closely with the Department of Agriculture and Attorney General’s Office to have the Dog License Act replaced.
She was an active member of the Bahamas Sea Turtle Conservation Group which this year successfully lobbied government to change the regulations concerning the harvesting of turtles. She was also active in the opposition to the Marine Mammal Protection Act which had implications for the way dolphins may be kept in captivity. She has also worked tirelessly to improve the welfare of horses, particularly those on the Family Islands.
Being aware that strong advocacy needs to be backed by knowledge, she participated in the very first survey on roaming dogs in The Bahamas. She subsequently had a number of papers published in international journals and co-authored “Potcakes” published by Purdue University Press in 2005.
