Increase in abandoned pets during the summer months

PALMA
THE number of pets abandoned on the streets of Majorca is predicted to rise by 20 percent during the summer season in comparison with the rest of the year.

This is because the summer is a time when many people don't know what to do with their pets when they go on holiday and so end up abandoning them.
The prediction was made by the director of the Son Reus animal protection centre, Pedro Morell, who confirmed that most animals are abandoned between May and September, and therefore these are the months when the centre has a “noticeable” increase in abandoned dogs and cats.

In August 2006 the centre received a total of 678 animals, compared with the average of 400 a month which is normal for the centre.
Abandoning pets on the street is classed as a crime under the Civil Code, which is one more fact the owners should consider before abandoning their pets.

There are many dog and cat homes on the island where they could leave their pets, said Morell. On this point, Morell said that the animal centre catalogues the animals that come to it in two ways.

Firstly, those which are considered to have been abandoned (with a microchip), of which there were 593 last year.
Secondly those which are considered strays (without a chip), 2'614 in total.
With regard to the number of adoptions recorded, the director of the animal centre underlined that these had scarcely changed, as between January and May 2006 there were 946 and during the same period this year the number of adopted animals was 936, 10 less than last year.

Morell recalled that since 1997 there had been a constant influx of animals into the centre, with annual increases which had exceeded 40 percent during the last few years.