The largest shelter for abandoned animals in Tenerife It needs urgent measures to guarantee its survival and future. The four town councils that this center serves – Santa Cruz de Tenerife, La Laguna, where it is located, El Rosario and Tegueste – urge the Cabildo of Tenerife to convene a urgent meeting, “as it is an insular competition”, to agree on a solution that allows “expanding and improving the center’s facilities in a new location.” They stated this in a joint statement sent yesterday to the media.
The Council’s response came just a few hours later. The island Government, in a note sent to this newspaper, showed its “willingness to collaborate” with the councils “to solve the deficiencies” but denied that caring for abandoned animals is his responsibility. “This activity falls under municipal jurisdiction, as established by laws 8/1991, of April 30, on the protection of animals, and 7/2023, of March 28, on the protection of animal rights.”
Both regulations are “clear”, according to the Tenerife Cabildo, and “establish that it is up to the town councils to collect and house abandoned animals in protection centres, for which they require the municipalities to have the necessary means for the collection and care of abandoned dogs, with our own resources, private entities or through shelters.
A problem that comes from behind
It is a problem that goes back a long way: The facilities have become small and the financial contributions of these town councils and the Cabildo are insufficient to care for an increasing number of abandoned dogs and cats, which exceed 4,000 each year, according to the shelter that manages them, the Canarian Federation of Animal and Plant Protectors (Fecapap). These calls from the Metropolitan Area councils to the Cabildo have been repeated in recent years but this one adds a new solution: take the shelter to another place where a new, larger one can be built.
Reports prepared by the La Laguna City Council on the location of the hostel – between Finca España and Valle Tabares – conclude, according to the statement from the four councils, that “the urban situation and the classification of the land where the center is located makes its expansion impossible.” . Expanding these dependencies, clarifies the statement of the four metropolitan municipalities, “would entail certain risks due to the land on which it sits.” «A modification of the planning of this area of La Laguna would have to be resorted to, «which could take up to two years to process.» The municipal technicians who have analyzed these documents from the Aguere City Council conclude that It is “an emergency situation that requires an imminent solution.”
The four town councils involved assure that they are already contacting their urban planning management to locate possible plots that meet the established requirements and, in this way, “make them available to the Cabildo of Tenerife so that the island administration can assume the management of the new center and decide its new location.
The reports from the La Laguna City Council describe numerous deficiencies in the façade and interior of this infrastructure, which is why both the university municipality and those of Santa Cruz, El Rosario and Tegueste consider it “necessary” to transfer the shelter’s activity “to “another suitable enclosure, with the aim of avoiding any risk to the activity, its professionals and the animals housed in its premises.”
The Cabildo, however, recalls that “despite not being an island jurisdiction”, the Valle Colino facilities “were built by this Corporation on land owned by the La Laguna City Council.” He adds that in previous years, the insular institution has granted subsidies, both to the shelter that manages the shelter and to the La Laguna City Council itself, which was granted a subsidy in 2016 of 223,665 euros for the construction of a retaining wall in the installations.
Improvement of 274,000 euros
In this fiscal year, the insular Corporation ensures that The protector has conveyed the urgency of undertaking an improvement in the facilities for 274,000 euros. «Taking into account the importance of Valle Colino being able to continue operating in the best conditions, the insular Corporation transferred to Fecapap the need for the La Laguna City Council to request this subsidy, since it is the body that owns the land on the one where Valle Colino is located.
The Cabildo wanted to reaffirm its “commitment” to animal welfare, through support to the different municipalities of the Island to try to solve this common problem, and remembers that “support has been provided to the municipalities that request it in the area of the construction or improvement of shelters. “Advertising campaigns are carried out to raise awareness among citizens about the responsible care of animals and municipalities that do not have shelter are supported with the Cabildo’s animal protection centers, both in Fasnia and El Ravelo.” «The fact that the collection and shelter of abandoned animals, as stated in the aforementioned legislation, falls on the municipalities, is not an impediment for the Cabildo to continue with the policy of support to the municipalities of Tenerife in this area”, concludes the response of the island Government.
