In shocking news this week Sant Josep council issued a statement to “qualify” the Municipality’s Hunters Association for the management and control of feral cats. Naturally many animal lovers see this akin to the wolves being left to watch over the sheep.
– The person in charge of this area in Podemos Ibiza, Giuseppe Guastella, has told NouDiari that different animal protective associations with which he has communicated in the last hours have conveyed their concern, since they believe that the consistory does not have adequate facilities to carry out this project.
As explained, the regulation maintains that captured cats must remain in custody for 21 days to be claimed by their owners, 15 if they have a chip. “And this is where doubts arise,” says Guastella, “since, in the absence of being able to read the document, we think that the Sant Josep City Council does not have the capacity to guard these animals for the indicated time and, furthermore, not it is known what will happen to cats that are not claimed by anyone ”.
Many animal groups on the island fear that they will be exterminated, since, if they are not claimed by anyone, there is not enough space in Ibiza to keep the cats alive. Likewise, the person in charge of animal welfare of Podemos stated that feral cats cannot be adopted, since their nature prevents them from adapting to living in a house or an apartment.
– NouDiari
Several animal associations in Ibiza denounce the existence of unattended traps, with the logo of the Balearic Hunting Federation, after finding one of them with a cat trapped on April 25 in the Cala Carbó area, in Sant Josep .
“The animal was very scared and was released by a neighbor who prevented it from dying of hunger or thirst.”
For this reason, several associations such as Ibiza Cuatro Patas, Care4Cats or Assaib, among others, have made complaints to the Consell de Ibiza, Environment and the Balearic Hunting Federation about this type of cage.
The Ibizan animal associations have stated that these traps are paid for with public money and demand to know if the hunters have permission to hunt during the state of alarm and how many cages there are unguarded throughout the island. They have said that there is no transparency about how they control whether the animals have a chip or what they do with them once they have been trapped. But they suspect that other domestic cats could fall into these traps and that if someone has lost a pet, they should report it to the Local Police.
“From the associations we ask the Council and the hunting federation for explanations about this fact of animal abuse. And we demand transparency in this case, since there are many missing animals, and we doubt that once captured they will proceed to identify them in case they carry a chip, most domestic cats are not required to chipped and most do not have chips. We ask everyone who has lost their cat or dog and has not located it to file the relevant complaint with the police ” – The Ibizan animal associations
You can support and follow Ibiza 4 Patas in their fight against this action here
