Loulé council are to support three local animal charities with as yet unspecified amounts of money, but with publicity and educational outreach.
Vítor Aleixo, Loulé’s mayor, commented that he and his colleagues are willing to help but this depends on the money being available.
A protocol was signed with great ceremony on World Animal Day, October 4th .
The council is going to support and work with the Associação Coração100Dono, Associação de Defesa de Animais Carenciados e Necessitados de Rua and the Associação AID Associação Protetora dos Animais.
Help is expected to include the creation of feeding areas for animals throughout the Loulé municipality.
The council also aims to run an awareness campaigns in schools which will focus on the benefits of sterilization - of the animals not the children – and to get the children volunteering to do some work at the municipal kennels, probably involving some shovelling.
“We want to make our contribution to a new humanism that focuses not only on man but a humanism that is centred in everything that is alive because the animals are our companions," said the mayor whose new approach undermines centuries of indifference to animal welfare in Portugal.
New laws have come into force which bring heavy penalties including prison and fines for those who mistreat or abandoned pet animals.
Animal abusers who “without a legitimate motive inflict pain, suffering or any other kind of physical mistreatment to a pet animal,” face one year in prison and those who abandon animals face six months in jail.
The main concerns from animal rights workers is that the judiciary and the police will take a lenient view when faced with animal abuse cases, only time will tell.
Loulé council may be taking aniumal care seriously but Lagoa has been avoiding the issue with success.
More than a month after a dozen seriously malnourished horses were reported in a Lagoa field it seems that only as a result of a nationwide and international campaign on social media that action now is being taken by the authorities.
Lagoa council guaranteed it was “monitoring the situation” with visits and was filing regular reports to the Directorate General of Food and Veterinary Services (DGAV.) This waffle is council-speak for 'doing nothing' and hoping the problem will go away.
The horses’ owner has been told by the land owner to remove them and the DGAV said charges are being brought against the owner.
Meanwhile the horses were ill treated by starvation and lack of care for many weeks as the authorities looked on.
Loulé's new animal care protocol is as remarkable as it is rare.
