Puerto Peñasco Municipal Animal Control Director Erick Francisco Gastélum Pacheco has detailed goals to build an animal shelter in coming months. The desired facility is meant to specialize in housing dogs as the city currently lacks any of its own infrastructure of this type.
Gastélum Pacheco explained mayor Jorge Pivac Carrillo has already greenlighted land for the future animal shelter site, while Animal Control is coordinating with groups such as Fundación Aquiles to make the project a reality.
The objective is not to simply house 200, 300 or more stray dogs, and even less so to euthanize them, but rather to provide a space to treat, delouse, and care for dogs in order to provide for their adoption. The Animal Control coordinated underscored sacrificing dogs is now banned under Municipal Animal Protection Regulations and no longer deemed as a method to control stray cat and dog populations.
Until the facility can be built, however, Gastélum Pacheco detailed Municipal Animal Control will continue with strategies of providing free spay and neutering services, medicated baths, and responding to reports of pet abuse or abandonment. The end goal, he stressed, is dignified treatment while reducing the number of stray animals along the city streets. These strategies are also part of a broader scope in working to reduce the worrying number of rickettsia cases (Rocky Mountain spotted fever (RMSF)), found in a bacteria transmitted frequently by ticks.
