In a statement, leftist party PAN – Party for People, Nature and Animals – said the government has “accepted our proposal that €500,000 from funding allocated for the construction of Official Animal Shelters [municipal kennels], is channelled into a national pet sterilisation campaign to help needy families, in liaison with the Veterinary Board and local councils”.
The resulting ordinance published this week decrees that local councils will be responsible for managing the greater needs of each area.
The measure is intended to be the beginning of a consistent sterilisation policy, which “contributes towards solving the serious problems of increasing and reproducing animals, with consequences on the overcrowding of official shelters and also having a negative impact on public health and animal welfare”.
In its statement, PAN explained, “Many Portuguese municipalities still do not sterilise animals nor implement CER (catch - sterilise - release) programmes.
“On the other hand, many families would like to be able to sterilise their animals, both for their own health and to ensure that they do not reproduce, but do not have the economic ability to do so.”
PAN believes that “sterilisation is fundamental to the implementation of the legislation on Canis de Abate [ending euthanasia in municipal kennels], approved in 2016.”
The party had proposed that at least €500,000 from government funds intended for the construction of local kennels should be ploughed into a national sterilization campaign, which was approved.
According to latest figures from the Directorate General for Food and Veterinary Medicine, last year, more than 40,000 dogs and cats were abandoned in mainland Portugal and the Azores, and collected and taken in by council services.
The figures – which do not include Madeira – indicate 16,144 animals were adopted, 11,819 were euthanized, 8,873 were sterilised and 98,266 were vaccinated.
PAN says these numbers show “a widespread non-compliance by the municipalities; of all the animals gathered only 22 percent were sterilised.
“Of the animals that were re-routed for adoption, only about half were sterilised, which means the other half can still reproduce, making it practically impossible to promote effective population control”, the party argued.
Northern Portugal has the highest number of animals collected by council services and put down.