Animal Welfare launches a campaign on buses against dog abandonment

The Cabildo of Lanzarote and La Graciosa, through the Animal Welfare Department, has launched a campaign to raise awareness to combat animal abandonment, using the island's public transport buses as advertising space to bring a message of direct reflection to the streets of all the island's municipalities. 

The president of the Cabildo, Oswaldo Betancort, applauded an initiative that “starts in the middle of the summer period coinciding with the holidays, months in which historically a third of the abandonments of the whole year are concentrated”. He also underlined the institution's firm commitment to animal protection, stating that “an advanced society is measured by how it treats its animals, and from this government group we are not going to normalize abandonment or mistreatment on our island. This campaign on public transport is not a mere visual reminder, but a call for citizen co-responsibility, to make Lanzarote a benchmark in welfare and respect for animal life”.

With this deployment, the corporation seeks to curb the saturation of island shelters and rescue centers, reminding citizens that incorporating an animal into the family nucleus constitutes a lifelong commitment. 

In this regard, the Minister of Animal Welfare, Armando Santana, highlighted that “behind every abandonment there is a story, a life, and an animal that does not understand why it has been left behind”. He also recalled that abandonment is a chronic problem that requires continuous institutional responses: “our goal is to achieve a radical change in mentality so that animals are no longer seen as objects or temporary impulses and are consolidated as family members”. 

In this way, the campaign is presented as a vital tool for citizen education, which seeks to tackle the problem from the root. Thus, the vinyl stickers on the buses display forceful messages aimed at generating deep collective reflection, among which stand out slogans as direct to the heart as: “You know you are abandoning him. He just thinks he's lost”, “Abandonment has no return ticket” or “Loyalty has no expiration date”. These slogans are complemented by other direct appeals to the summer period such as “Love is not abandoned for holidays” and “Does abandonment really fit in your suitcase?”, seeking a daily and constant visual impact by taking advantage of the routes of public transport lines throughout the island's geography.

The official presentation took place this Thursday, August 13 at 12:00 PM, on the esplanade of the Fairgrounds, in front of the Cabildo of Lanzarote. The buses, already vinyl-wrapped to convey the impact of the messages, were exhibited at the event. Animal protection associations such as Sara, Lanzanimal, Ademal, or La Casa de las Estrellas attended the presentation. The campaign will be on 8 buses until the end of September, each with a slogan.