Feral chickens and roosters roam freely and they cross the tracks around an embankment where some neighbors give them water and food. In the same area, garbage accumulates around the road, the weeds –including the invasive cat tail– They sprout even from the sidewalksa traffic signal which indicates where the exit to La Laguna is appears lying in a roundaboutanother has a large part of the letters erased by pollutionhe asphalt is full of cracks and small potholesmost of the pylons are destroyed due to lack of maintenance and some metal bollards are broken and torn from the ground.
It is difficult to find a more disastrous point in Tenerife than the first access to the Canary Islands University Hospital (HUC) via the Northern Highway (TF-5). And that is a road through which they circulate many vehiclesnot only those who go to one of the main hospital centers in Tenerife, but also those who go to the parking lots of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of La Laguna.
This point in the Finca la Multa neighborhood not only includes the access 5A to the HUC and the Pardo Bazán and Santa Mónica streets. In addition to the University Hospital and the Faculty of Medicine, there is a large private parking and numerous homes.
Its location, in full border between the municipalities of Santa Cruz de Tenerife and San Cristóbal de La Laguna, explains in part why it presents this state of abandonment. Even the layout of the border line does not coincide by a few meters between that provided by the Santa Cruz City Council and that of La Laguna.
The Lagunero Consistory points out that there are «a gap» of competences in this area. «When the integration of the University Hospital into the Canarian Health Service was carried out, the Cabildo of Tenerife handed over the healthcare buildings and internal roads, but nothing was specified regarding the external roads, so there is a void in this regard,” detail official sources from the Aguere City Council.
Its location, on the border between Santa Cruz and La Laguna, partly explains why it is in this state of abandonment.
Both councils want to put an end to this problemwhich dates back many years, generates insecurity among drivers and pedestrians, and gives a very bad image. Carlos Tarife, Councilor for Public ServicesEnvironment and Animal Welfare of the Chicharrero City Council, announces that it will order the rehabilitation of the entire area corresponding to Santa Cruzthat is, from the bottom of the Faculty of Medicine parking lots downwards.
«We will resurface the roads, repair the sidewalks and improve the gardens. And we want to do it as soon as possible thanks to a project that we have promoted, through the creation of a business pool, which will allow us to act quickly in these cases,” explained the first deputy mayor. The capital is also going to study what can be done with the roosters and chickens that are in the chicharrera partas they pose a threat to traffic.
As for the lagoon partthe City Council assures that in recent years has requested the transfer of the tracks that are located in its territory, which includes from the small roundabout to the exit of the La Cuesta-Taco highway, with the desire to take charge of its maintenance, but both the HUC and the Cabildo deny being the owners, so has not been able to materialize.
In the absence of resolving the administrative conflictthe lagoon area of Municipal Services reports that a cleaning operation in the area. It is scheduled for today through the deployment of a special cleaning crew. The team of municipal workers will carry out clearing, cleaning and washing work.
La Laguna has requested the transfer of the roads with the desire to maintain them but the HUC and the Cabildo deny being the owners, so it has not been able to materialize.
Another Department of La Laguna, that of Animal welfarealso is going to intervene. He is going to act with an operation through the agents of the Environmental Protection Unit (UPMA) with the intention of identify the origin of feral animals that roam freely in the area. Their capture is not ruled out if necessary. It will also take the appropriate steps to intervene and find a solution to this situation.
Waiting for Santa Cruz and La Laguna to intervenesome neighbors They usually go to the embankment where the roosters and chickens live to feed them and fill the water jugs. A woman who lives in the area stops in this area and looks at them in amazement: “There are more and more of them. “Look how beautiful those roosters are,” she says while one of them cries. The woman adds that the community is growing despite the fact that “some people come here to take them, I don’t know if to make a broth, for Santero rites or simply to have them in their homes.” «But the truth is that they should take more care of this point that has been abandoned for so long. Look at that sign lying on the ground: it’s been there for months and months.
A neighbor says that some people have taken roosters and chickens from the place, she does not know exactly why.
He Cabildo de Tenerife gives its version about the part that corresponds to him. Dámaso Arteaga, Minister of Highways of the Island Corporationspecifies that “those streets were built back in the day when the HUC was built, as a development for the hospital complex, and There has always been discussion about ownership».
«The area is not included in our conservation competition. The highway link, which is the part that corresponds to the Cabildo, ends at the end of the highway deceleration lane, which leads to the access to the HUC. From there it is municipal ownership. The entrance to the medical school is municipal,” Arteaga makes clear.
The birds that reside at this point are not the only ones that move freely on the Island.. In fact, La Laguna is one of the municipalities with the largest number of communities of roosters and feral hens in Tenerife. Some They even came to frequent the Guajara campus of the University of La Laguna, a fact that at the beginning of last year even had national repercussions. “What to do about the plague of university chickens,” headlined EL DÍA at that time. In addition to accessing the HUC and Guajara, they frequent other areas within La Laguna such as La Verdellada, Geneto and Los Baldíos.
Both the City Councils of La Laguna and Santa Cruz remind that these groups of roosters and chickens are considered pests. and that the municipal ordinances contemplate sanctions for those who feed them. In La Laguna, fines can range from 3,500 to 15,000 euros. In Santa Cruz, the most common penalty for feeding animals is 1,500 euros. In the capital, the majority of fines processed have to do with feeding pigeons.
