Albufeira now has its own Animal Welfare Center, built as a result of funding from last year’s suggestions from the public for 'local projects.'
The new Centro de Bem Estar Animal has been opened by the mayor, Carlos Silva e Sousa, at Vale de Pedras which is close to the current council animal collection centre. The plan is that the two facilities will work together.
The welfare centre has space for 28 animals, a consultation area, an operating room and a recovery area and will concentrate on sterilisation and urgent treatment.
The mayor commented to Sul Informação that as the new centre is linked to the council collection center, “which means that we can collect abandoned animals and then treat them. They get the full service."
The mayor added that the new center also helps the objective of getting animals adopted, "the centre works as a spur for people to adopt aniamls. If the animals are well treated and looking good and happy, it is easier for people to adopt them," concluded Carlos Silva e Sousa.
How this centre will fit in with the Algarve mayors’ plan to rationalise kennel provision in the region remains to be seen. So far the mayors only have decided to commission a report to see if two super-kennels should be built, one in Aljezur and another in Alcoutim, to move the abandoned and stray animal problem to the periphery of the region.
Whether this plan will go ahead, remains to be decided after the report is produced and analysed.
In the meantime, local animal care in Albufeira has gone up a notch and the new centre is a credit to those who submitted the application and other who voted for its construction.