Rincon Takes Action for Animals

GOT THE HUMP: The circus was apparently maintaining a camel on an illegal basis.

A CIRCUS which planned to perform in Rincon de la Victoria has had its license revoked by local authorities after they discovered they used animals in their shows.

The Circo Jamaica, which planned to perform for three weeks in Rincon, had described itself as a ‘musical circus’. However, when technicians inspected the circus, they discovered several different animals beyond the usual cats and dogs. The technicians discovered ponies, a puma, two ostriches, four goats and a camel.

Rincon de la Victoria passed a city ordinance last October, making the municipality a “Friend City of the Animals”, and forbidding circuses from using animals in their shows. According to the municipality’s Councillor for Activity of Public Roads and Trade, Pedro Fernandez Ibar (IU), the circus said that the animals were not going to be used in any of the shows in Rincon.

“We are committed to circuses that do not include these shows” Fernandez Ibar said.

Circuses using animals in their acts is not as uncommon in Spain as it is in other parts of Europe such as Portugal and Belgium, where the use of animals is completely banned. Rincon is the latest in a long list of towns in Spain that have taken action on the issue however, with Barcelona, Cordoba, and the provincial capital, Malaga, having banned the practice.

Axarquia has seen a string of animal cruelty stories recently, including a couple found to be keeping 39 cats and 13 dogs in squalor in their Velez-Malaga home. However, these towns’ policies show a turnaround in the perception of animal rights in Spain, which have long been a bone of contention amongst expats arriving from the UK.

Animal rescue shelters have taken root across the area, and with police appearing to be taking a stronger view of cruelty, expats may soon not have so much to worry about.

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