The question is, do the animals that remain in captivity in the Peña Escrita mountain park live in a state of semi-abandonment?

That is what the Fundación para el Asesoramiento y Acción en Defensa de los Animales (Faada) claim and that is what the Almuñécar Town Hall denies.

According to Faada, on a visit to the park they discovered “a great number of bones and carcasses belonging to unidentified animals in the vicinity of the illegal zoo.”

The fact is that the mountain park is closed to the public and has been for quite a while but there are still animals, such as a bear, within the enclosed spaces where they live.

The Town Hall explained that the bear is still there because it is advanced in age and would not survive the trauma of being transferred to a new location. The other bears were transferred to a zoo in Hungary a year or so back, which is where this one would have gone had it not been for this reason, according to the Town Hall.

The Councillor for the Environment, Luis Aragón, says that the animal association is well aware of this. He also asks where the association has been, with whom the Town Hall cooperates, these past two years.

Sr. Aragón repeats the observation which he has quite often used that when the Herrera administration took office, the park was chaotic with animals kept in what the Benavides’ administration had described as a zoo, but which lacked that legal definition. There were also animals there that weren’t even on the inventory. He admits that the administrative side of finding homes for the animals has been drawn out with many delays.

The animal association, on the other hand, said that even after five years of the park being closed there are still animals up there.

“Both the infrastructure and the animals are in a state of deplorable abandonment,” said the association spokesperson. The spokesperson also complained that since they informed the Town Hall about the large number of carcasses in the immediate area of the park, they are still waiting for a response.

They also said that there is a tiger in the park, as well, together with the bear, and both find themselves living under “lamentable conditions.”

The spokesperson concluded, “we publicly denounce the Town Hall’s laxity, which has yet again shown that the welfare of these animals is evidently not the administration’s concern, adding that they are demanding responsibility and explanations over the lack of care of the said animals.

Editorial comment: After over 11 years governing Almuñécar, it is a little late to harp back to how the Benavides’ administration handed things over. Furthermore, if the bear is to old to be moved and it is living in solitude up there, in its compound, wouldn’t it be kinder to put it down?

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