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Four more abandoned horses belonging a recent jailed dealer have been found in Cadiz.
The animals were found by the La Linea de la Concepcion Policia Local in a ‘flooded field without any access to food’, according to the Andalucian Rescue Centre for Horses (ARCH).
The Olive Press quoted Jean Joss as the ARCH’s publicity officer. “They were almost skin and bones, they had been starved for a long time.”
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It was ARCH who got the call to take in these ‘extremely emancipated’ animals that Joss described as ‘living skeletons’.
After moving to the rescue centre, one of the horses was discovered ‘lying down in the paddock, unable to gather enough strength to stand up’.
After volunteers and vets spent ‘several hours’ trying to save this equine, they ‘let her go’ by ‘putting her to sleep’ and stated on social media that she was ‘too weak to survive’.
ARCH had previously rescued six abandoned animals from the same dealer, just days before this tragic death.
This initial rescue led to the horse trader receiving a three-year prison sentence, which activists hailed.
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ARCH, the animal rescue organization that first rescued animals from this dealer’s care, had been working with these activists for five years.
In 2021 and 2022 they took in 15 equines that were confiscated by SEPRONA but failed to get the trader behind bars as he managed to get ‘round his sentence by putting the animals into the names and codes of other people’.
It was last month when his dodgy dealings came to an end as a ‘more sympathetic judge’ sent the owner to prison after what Joss called a ‘combined effort from the Policia Local, The Animal Collective, ARCH and their animal rights lawyer’.
Supporting the imprisonment is La Linea’s Ayuntamiento who has stated that the arrested individual had been neglecting animals for the ‘past decade’.
“Leaving a horse or donkey in an uncontrolled area, without water or sufficient food, is not a way to keep an animal: it is a situation of neglect” the Ayuntamiento stated on their website in response to this specific situation.
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In the same message the Ayuntamiento promised ‘to continue to act firmly against any case of animal abuse or abandonment’ and encouraged citizens to report any suspected cases of these crimes to them as ‘protecting animals is a collective responsibility’.
Although this sentence is cause for celebration, the ARCH has been under increased pressure since it took in ten more animals.
It was a ‘squash’ to fit the additional equines into the centre with two having to be sent to temporary foster care while space was created for them.
The animals are in poor health and require veterinary treatment.
The starved horses all bring with them their own medical challenges, from worm and lice infections to colic, which lead to ‘astronomical’ vet bills.
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Their emancipation is a challenge of itself as one can not ‘just feed a starving horse because if you give them too much too soon it can do more harm than good,’ according to Joss.
She added, “We need to get the animals better over the long-term and all the help we can receive.”
ARCH has appealed to the public for help in covering these costs.
Joss explained that the charity does not receive any funding. “When the police tell us to pick up these animals, we are even required to pay the transport costs,” she said.
Therefore, every single donation ‘really helps’.
Here you can make a donation to ARCH.
The Olive Press has more animal news. Click here to see it.
