Alicante Municipality Launches Campaign to Promote Pet Identification

Torrevieja Town Hall has launched an awareness and visibility campaign aimed at promoting the identification of pets. This initiative, from the municipal department of Animal Protection, seeks to highlight the importance of pet owners, particularly those with dogs, cats, and ferrets, complying with the obligation to identify their pets. This ensures that if they are lost, escape, or flee during an emergency, they can be found and returned to their homes, according to the Town Hall.

This initiative also aims to promote the identification and sterilisation of all cats over six months old. This is not only a legal requirement but also to prevent these animals, which sometimes leave home, roam, escape, and get lost, from becoming part of a feral cat colony or contributing to the growth of the community cat population by not being sterilised. Hundreds of cats arrive at the Municipal Shelter each year without identification, and many of them are lost and cannot return to their human families.

The Animal Protection Department also emphasises that due to the large influx of citizens and international tourists with pets that Torrevieja receives, it is important that they receive this information. This is to convey the necessity for pets to be identified in their country of origin and registered in the Valencian Community database (Rivia), so that if they are lost, the owner's details are available to notify them of their pet's recovery.

This informative campaign, according to the councillor for Animal Protection, Concha Sala, aims to do everything possible to raise awareness among pet owners that identification is one of the fundamental pillars to eradicate animal abandonment and build a fairer, more empathetic, and respectful society.

The campaign has become visible, particularly on the 'mupis' distributed across various public spaces in Torrevieja, as well as in veterinary clinics, pet shops, and municipal offices.