Animal supplier warns of 80,000 animals living in reception centers

Animal rights commissioner Laurentina Pedroso warned on Tuesday that there are some 80,000 animals being held in collection centers, a situation that is also worrying municipalities, some of which do not know what to do with the animals.

Concerns were raised on Tuesday at parliament’s environment and energy committee, which heard from several organizations at Chegi’s request, about the rise in animal abandonment crimes.

In addition to the animal supplier, the director of the GNR Nature and Environmental Protection Service (SEPNA), Jorge Amado, and David Pereira from the PSP Animal Welfare Program were heard. Pedro Folgado, President of the Alenquer Chamber, representing the National Association of Portuguese Municipalities (ANMP), was also heard.

Chegi MP Rita Martins explained that although the number of animals captured has decreased slightly in 2022 (almost 42,000), there is a belief that this number is constantly growing and explained that the hearings were aimed at understanding the reasons why animals are abandoned For search. ways to minimize the problem.

GNR’s Jorge Amado said there had been no significant development in animal abandonment or cruelty since 2016, and cited difficulties in some municipalities in having “somewhere to house the animal” at night as one of the industry’s challenges. .

Jorge Amado spoke about GNR data, whether from inspections or cases of reported abuse, and in response, Chege said he did not believe oversight was insufficient.

David Pereira also provided an update on the PSP’s animal welfare activities and said that Covid-19 complaints had increased over the past year compared to previous years, while the number of complaints had not increased during the lockdown.

The representative of the PSP also noted the lack of supervision and stated that he did not know the reasons for the abandonment of animals, without citing the unfavorable economic situation as a possible reason.

Likewise, Laurentina Pedroso also did not point to the economic crisis as a reason for abandoning animals, since people prefer to seek help from associations and keep animals. “A lot of people are asking for help,” he said, believing that in a crisis situation, reducing VAT on animal feed and medical and veterinary services would be “very useful for families.”

The supplier said she believed there were still a large number of abandoned animals, she later stated that the annual animal data collection did not reflect current perceptions and therefore policy and strategy could not be developed by waiting year after year. to see what’s going on.

Overall, he said, 42,000 animals are rounded up each year, 25,000 are adopted and 2,000 are euthanized, leaving 15,000 animals at any time. As every year, at least 80,000 animals live in collection points; next year there will be almost 100,000.

“And that is worrying because of the welfare and costs,” which could reach 100 million euros in 10 years, he warned.

Pedro Folgado also expressed concern about the increase in the number of animals in the centers and said that the solution to the problem of stray animals cannot simply be to increase the capacity of collection centers.

“Municipalities are struggling with an absurd amount of stray animals being collected,” he said, stressing that municipalities are forced to collect animals and then have nowhere to put them and don’t know what to do.

Pedro Frasan, Chega’s deputy, said that currently just over 200 of the 308 municipalities have official waste collection centers.