Peña Escrita, Almuñécar’s very controversial mountain park, has been in the news on three occasions this month, and only one them for a positive reason. The first was an article that detailed exactly what it cost the Almuñécar taxpayer to run this place: for 2009, the paltry sum of 325,000 euros.
That works out at every citizen of Almuñécar finding twelve euros a year through their taxes. Not much? Doesn’t sound it, perhaps, but we’re not talking the annual budget, but the loses accrued, and these figures were supplied by the Town Hall’s municipal surveyor.
Furthermore, this figure of almost 325,000 euros is calculated, counting on 8,000 vehicles, each paying five euros to get in. If the park doesn’t have that many visitors during 2009, then the loss figure will be higher.
Of course, the opposition have really got their teeth into this financial revelation.
The PSOE local leader, Francisco Prados points out that the total losses for 2008 were 154,456 euros – and this year, he points out, for no apparent reason losses will be double this. So, he asks, where did the other 170,539 euros go?
Here a little bit of history on the park: since the park was founded in 1997, millions have been poured into the project. Just during 2006, 1.6m euros was injected to improve the installations, 30,000 euros was spent on the tigers’ cages – and whilst on the subject of feline inmates…the animal keeper up in the park nearly had his arms ripped off by a not-impressed lion.
Joaquín Requena is alive today because he punched the hell out of the lion rather than resigning himself to being eaten. The 45-year-old zookeeper admits that the incident occurred through his own fault – he failed to secure a security hatch.
“I was in the corridor that leads to the lions’ cage and I left a drop-gate open,” he explained, adding, “It was a mistake that could have cost me my life.”
It had just dawned on him that he had left it open, when he swung around to find himself face-to-face with a 300-kilo lion. The lion had only just arrived at the park, so it was not as if they were long-time buddies. The reason that he was in the lion corridor at 9.30 in the evening was to feed them, meaning that they were a touch peckish.
“The animal leapt at me. First it clawed my back, then it sunk its’ teeth into my thigh and arm. I just started thumping it as hard as I could. I’ve got no idea how I got out of there,” he recounted.
But get out of the trap he did, managing the close the gate – this time – behind him. The first thing that he did was to phone the Mayor and ask for help. Joaquín managed to apply a tourniquet to himself and then await the ambulance.
“I saw a lot of blood and, and remembering the films, I made a tourniquet,” he said.
However, Joaquín’s foremost preoccupation was that the incident would act negatively against the zoo: “The lions aren’t aggressive; it was me who shouldn’t have been were I was,” he reasoned. He even went so far as to put parents’ minds at rest over taking kids up there: “The chances of a lion escaping, with the 4-metre-high electrical fences is zero.”
Joaquín is probably one of the mountain-park zoo’s staunchest defenders: “The views are a real marvel, as well as the 40 species of animals that we have up there.”
The problem is, as the leader of the IU pointed out, Joaquín is hired as an agricultural labourer; not a trained animal keeper.
For good measure, the Ecologistas en Acción are demanding the immediate closure of the park. In a strongly worded report to the Delegation for the Environment, after the tiger-tickly episode, they are surprised that although inspectors from the Environmental Department detected grave deficiencies in the park, it remains open.
For this reason the ecologist group considers that the environmental authorities will have to share the blame, should something go horribly wrong up there, because, they claim, the security measures they have in place concerning to the keeping of dangerous animals does not even come close to what the Ley 31/2003 stipulates. The law states that there must be qualified staff in zoos and if there are not, it should be closed down.
Lastly on the subject, Peña Escrita received its latest acquisition at the end of last month, in the form of a Gibraltar ape, which had been abandoned in Almería. The park already has eleven of these apes, but it is the first male… there is one inhabitant of the park that won’t be complaining in the near future, that’s for sure!