The Councillor for the Environment, Luis Aragón, accompanied by other Town Council officials, including the Chief of Local Police, went to the Aquario to explain the situation to the staff. Also invited was Aliart Engineering S.L; i,e., the company that will be running the installations once the new lease is sorted – no representative showed up.

Councillor Aragón explained that during a preliminary inspection they had found numerous deficiencies/breakages but to get the full picture it would take a little time. In his opinion, given the state of the installations, they could not be opened to the public and that to do so might take longer than foreseen.

In the meantime, he explained, the Town Council was drawing up clauses to lease both the aquarium and the bird park. He also made it be known that whilst this was going on they had handed over the maintenance of the installations and animals to a local vet.

Workers not happy.
The fifteen workers at the Acuario de Fauna Mediterránea de Almuñécar feel that their particular problem has been forgotten, despite having worked for the last six months, without a salary, to keep the installations open and the creatures within from dying.

There is a feeling amongst some ex-employees that they have been used, left, right and centre.

Some workers consider that the present Town Council has used the situation to its own benefit, knowing as far back as October what was going to happen; that a provisional lease had already been worked out with a local company which would be bringing in its own staff.

(News: Almunecar, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)