The Hunting Society, which on several occasions has come out to express its rejection of cases of animal abuse, now wanted to show its discomfort with one of the protective associations of the island, Huella a Huella, which it accuses of acting only seeking “the photo” and “the controversy about hunting and hunters in the media”.
The trigger for the statement sent to La Voz de Lanzarote is, according to the Society, in the “worrying news that has been appearing in the local press in relation to the alleged abandonment and mistreatment of hunting dogs”, and for which it holds this association responsible. “In most of them, all hunters are indiscriminately generalized and accused and, as we have reiterated on numerous occasions, the Hunting Society is totally against this type of practice”, they point out.
The latest case they refer to was the appearance of a podenco in a ravine in the municipality of Teguise, “in a regrettable state of malnutrition”. In this regard, although the statement sent by Huella a Huella spoke of abandonment and even mistreatment, the Society specifies that “we do not know if that dog has actually been abandoned or has been lost and the owner is looking for it”. However, it does admit that the dog was not “properly identified”, which “is not justifiable, since by law from three months of age it is mandatory to identify, register and vaccinate any dog, not just hunting dogs”.
They make public a decision notified by Teguise in 2015
“Once this is said”, the Hunting Society emphasizes that “most of the news about supposedly abandoned dogs comes from the municipality of Teguise”, where the City Council has an agreement signed with Huella a Huella. And it affirms that, “curiously, only those related to hunting dogs are publicized”. For this reason, it explains that they have decided to make public a letter they received in November 2015, in which the Consistory informed them that it had “restricted the collection of dogs solely and exclusively to animals that have actually been abandoned, without a holder or owner to take care of them”.
This, according to the Society, means that if its “hunting guards, or any citizen as has already been the case, had managed to retain or rescue a feral, abandoned or lost dog, they could not hand it over to the municipal animal shelter, since the dog would be considered the responsibility of the person who collected it”. In their opinion, this, in addition to being “questionable for reasons of common sense or moral reasons”, also “directly clashes with and contravenes current legislation in the Canary Islands on Animal Protection”.
At the time, he explains that they met with the mayor and the councilor of the area and agreed, “in order not to have problems with an animal protection association”, to establish “a collaboration between both parties in the collection of animals”. In this way, if the hunting guards managed to rescue or retain a dog, they would call the person in charge of the shelter and he would come to pick it up. “This type of agreement and collaboration is not something new since the Hunting Society in recent years has collaborated with all the municipalities of the island, without exception”, they emphasize.
However, they regret that “for some time now, the collaboration and the situation has become unsustainable in the Teguise City Council". And they blame the Huella a Huella association for this.
"The situation has become unsustainable"
“For reasons that we do not know and coinciding with the increasingly media activity of an association for the defense of animals based in that municipality, relations with the Council have become strained to the point of doubting that the dogs are transferred by the hunting guards from other municipalities to locations in the municipality, or of denying the collection of an animal already captured, arguing that in order for the dog to be collected by the shelter it had to be seen loose by the Local Police or the person in charge of the shelter and collect it themselves, which leads us to wonder who would be responsible if that loose and unrestrained dog breaks into the road and causes an accident causing damage and not only to the car or motorcycle but to its occupants”, questions the statement that they have sent to La Voz.
In it, they also point out that “it invites reflection” the fact that said association “did not attend the course on Animal Abuse, Police Intervention and Citizen Action that took place on January 9 and 10 of this year and does not take part in animal welfare issues that directly affect their municipality”.
From the Hunting Society they regret that “all these events, Island Councils and courses, in which directors of the Society, hunting guards, city councils, Local Police, Seprona and councilors of the Cabildo and protectors of the island were present, and whose purpose is the consensus of actions, the search for joint solutions and, therefore, more effective in the fight against abuse and animal abandonment, seem not to be of interest to that association if they are not accompanied by the corresponding photo and controversy about hunting and hunters on the island in the media”.