The Councilor for Transportation, Sociocultural Centers and Animal Welfare of the Teguise City Council, Carlos Cejudo, spoke this Tuesday on the Buenos Días, Lanzarote program to explain why dead cats have appeared in the town of Soo.
Carlos Cejudo said on the morning show Buenos Días, Lanzarote: "We have been with the incident open for a week and the investigations prepared by the Local Police, the Cabildo and Animal Welfare of the City Council. First it was a cat, then two and the neighbors had told us that there were more deaths."
"We are talking about a colony of wild cats, which are in an area where no one controls them, that everyone goes to feed them and that these little animals are not vaccinated. There may be infectious diseases," Cejudo said during his speech.
The corpses found in the last week have been tested to determine whether or not there has been any infectious disease. For the moment, the felines have been diagnosed with feline panleukopenia, an infectious disease that is only present in cats and is not transmitted to people.
With this finding it has been discovered that "no one is poisoning" these animals, which was one of the hypotheses considered by the residents and the Teguise consistory.
At this point, the Councilor for Animal Welfare has highlighted the importance of acting correctly in feeding these felines. "They cannot go, drop the food and leave," Cejudo referred to the feeders of the cat colonies.
"In Soo something huge has happened, they pass by, throw food and leave," said Carlos Cejudo.
The Animal Welfare Councilor has indicated that the correct thing to do is to feed the animals, wait for them to finish and that it is unnecessary to "leave a large amount of food there," only water.
The consistory has assured that they have held a series of talks to explain to these volunteers how the colonies work. Within the framework of this initiative, they have also neutered 101 cats only in the municipality of Teguise. The City Council is still waiting to be able to do the same in La Graciosa, which depends on the permits of various administrations.
Cejudo added that there are colony feeders who do not want to join the City Council's initiatives. Thus, he has added that it is forbidden to feed animals on the street without having an express authorization from the municipal institution.
Regarding how the area is disinfected to prevent the virus from passing to more cats, the consistory has reported that they first contact the owners of the land, request permits and carry out the cleaning of garbage, remove feeders and move the colony to another place, taking into account that they are in a natural setting and that other species of flora and fauna may be affected.
