The City Hall of Candelaria organized on Wednesday the Igueste Community Table. It was held at the Porfirio Torres Cruz Cultural Space and the neighbors who attended shared ideas, suggestions and complaints regarding the situation in the town, with special concern about the increase in feral cats in the area. In this regard, Candelaria has a program that covers stray catsin collaboration with accredited volunteers who are the ones who can feed the felines in the authorized nuclei, with sterilization control, census, hygiene and deworming.
The status of the requests from previous community roundtables, improvements in the asphalt and a response was given to questions raised in the previous roundtable held in March, related to speed reducers and mirrors to improve visibility in some streets.
The next appointment will be this Monday, at the Fulgencio Otazo Morales Cultural Space in Malpaís with the Community Table of Araya, Las Cuevecitas and Malpaís.
Does my cat stop being a pet?: in the Canary Islands it is one of the worst invasive species
Last August 8th it was 20 years since the cats they have their international day, as a result of the proposal of the International Fund for Animal Welfare. Although it is difficult to offer an exact figure, it is estimated that There are more than 400 million felines in the world.according to Word Atlas publication, specialist in demography and environment. A pet that, in turn, enters the catalogs of invasive species.
In addition, at least 90% of all of them are pets, which in the case of Spain are found in one of every two homes. But, Is it dangerous that we treat cats as pets? A country of the European Union has asked this question. And his answer was clear: yes.
That’s how it is, the Polish Academy of Sciences has stated that domestic cats will be considered as invasive species since “there is clear scientific evidence of the negative influence (of this species) on native biodiversity”. They have also stated that cats should be kept out of confined spaces during the birds’ breeding season.
However, these animals will not be subject to elimination in the Polish country. And less after the controversy that has arisen among its citizens and that has led to a ‘mandatory’ appearance by Wociech Solarzbiologist at the Polish National Academy of Sciences.
The draft of the Animal Protection, Rights and Welfare Act, promoted by the Minister of Social Rights and Agenda 2023, Ione Belarra, does not contain measures in this regard. However, this absence does not mean that the feral feline does not a particularly serious threat to birds and mammals native to Spain.
That’s how it showed the international study led by the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC), which classifies these species as “one of the most harmful invasive species for vertebrate communities on islands”.
The reason why cats are more dangerous in these insular spaces it is very simple: they are not used to these species. That is, the flora and fauna of the islands have evolved in their absence. This is why their arrival has contributed to the extinction of at least 14% of extinct vertebrates, as confirmed by the Canarian researcher, Manuel Nogales, in this research of the Institute of Natural Products and Agrobiology of the CSIC.
If this recommendation by Polish biologists were applied in Spain, cats would constitute “one of the main causes of global biodiversity loss”, as stated by the Ministry for Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge. In fact, the International Union for Conservation of Nature considers this animal among the 100 worst invasive species in the world.
It is for all this that one of the recommendations made by experts is to avoid animal abandonment. According to figures from the latest study by the Affinity Foundation, almost 120,000 cats were abandoned in Spain last year. And it is that, although the cat domestic also preys, this animal only needs one generation to become feral. “The feral cat is the one that produces the most effect,” assured the delegate of the Spanish Society of Ornithology (SEO/BirdLife) in the Canary Islands at Green and blue.
