The campaign to collect signatures for a law against the anonymous death of animals has managed to double the number of supports in six months. The initiative that seeks to force pets killed by accidents to be identified by chip to inform their families, has managed to grow to almost 50,000 signatures, starting from 25,0000 in March of this year. "People have responded very positively," says Enri Semper, promoter of the initiative with her daughter Cristina Farrerons, with satisfaction.
La Vanguardia has been following the efforts of this mother and daughter from Montcada i Reixach, since it became aware of their case in 2022, when they sent an image of their dog Ras, missing in 2020, to the Readers' Network, and the newspaper carried out a report about his experience.
What began as a family's push to recover their pet ended up mutating into a massive citizen petition to force the Catalan administration to identify dead pets with the chip and report their death. "A family cannot spend years and years looking for an animal that may have already died, and not be notified," Semper complains.
To this end, this mother started a petition on the citizen participation website Change.org, and opened various profiles on social networks to amplify the reach of the campaign.
Likewise, they submitted a letter to the Department of Climate Action to make the pertinent changes to the regulations, as has already been done, for example, in Galicia and Madrid, and put an end to the current protocol. Despite the approval of the Generalitat and various parliamentary forces, since then there have been several occasions in which Semper has tried to find out the progress of his initiative without success.
The administration has argued that the drought has monopolized the department's agenda in recent months or the complicated coordination between administrations to excuse the delay in changing regulations.
When asked again by La Vanguardia, Acció Climàtica insists that "the regulations are very advanced", although they declare that they cannot offer information about when it could be approved. They also explain that first "the protocol must be agreed upon with the Department of Territory", and they emphasize that "the change in regulations would only affect the roads under the jurisdiction of the Generalitat."
"I would like it to be approved now because every day many dogs are lost and killed by vehicles, and nothing is done," Semper despairs. "Are you aware of how many people are asking for this change?" he asks.
He points out that the support they are receiving is much more than they expected and that it not only comes from Catalonia, but from all of Spain, since "there are many people in a similar situation and who share their proposal."
However, Semper expresses his skepticism that the collection of support will continue at the same pace as until now. He explains that they redistribute it from time to time, but that the rate of signatures has decreased and details that he does not know what to do more to gather more support. "When it doesn't touch them closely, many people don't collaborate," he laments.
Now, to streamline the matter, he is also considering appealing to the Ombudsman of Catalonia, although he does not express much confidence that he can be useful.
However, she reaffirms her determination for Ras and the cause he defends. "I don't plan to stop until I get a firm commitment to this regulation from the Department," she concludes.
