From time to time, some private organizations publish different figures on abandonment that occurs in our country and which should be considered in any case. It is not because the work is done poorly, on the contrary, it carries out a conscientious work and allocates significant human and economic resources for its realization. This is not the problem. The real question is the enormous difficulty in obtaining real data on this issue in our country.
Possibly the reason is the current scarce structure regarding animal protection. When someone finds an animal in Spain and does not have a chip, in many cases you have to consider that they are hiding it directly. There are even those who sometimes hide it with a chip, only to discover much later that the animal was not abandoned, but lost.
They are not included number of abandoned animals, anyone taken by unrecognized foster homes or shelters. These centers, some of which are well-known and sometimes even working with the police or local authorities, collect animals without their data appearing on any record.
Therefore, and based on the cooperation of all authorized centers for the collection of abandoned animals in these studies, which is not always the case, data on abandoned animals at the national level are not even close to reality.
It is a pity, because in order to measure the seriousness of a problem and to legislate for it, it is necessary to know the problem as a whole and act accordingly. On the other hand, it is surprising that private institutions had to take the initiative in this regard and that these studies were not carried out directly by the Spanish government. Maybe it’s because knowing the truth isn’t all that interesting, like promulgating new laws that try to gain votes but don’t provide a solution. It goes like this, goes like this.