The Court of First Instance and Instruction number 1 of La Gomera has notified that a livestock farm located in the Barranco de Santiago (San Sebastián de la Gomera) has been intervened, which allegedly lacks a license, pours urine and manure without any type of control in the bed of the public ravine, with risk to the quality of surface and underground water “of very difficult repair” – and keeps about 60 pigs in a state of malnutrition and “at risk to their lives”.
The judicial authority explains in the resolution that, at the request of a complaint from the Civil Guard and the Insular Water Council of La Gomera, the owner of this farm is being investigated as the alleged perpetrator of crimes against natural resources and the environment and of a crime of abuse related to the protection of domestic animals and, consequently, and in accordance with the request in this regard of the prosecutor, the preventive seal of the activity is ordered, and the animals have been confiscated and intervened precautionary, « provisionally withdrawing its care and custody» from the owner of the farm, to attribute it to the Area of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries of the Cabildo Insular de la Gomera.
The judicial authority clarifies that the pigs remain under the guardianship of the Corporation “without prejudice to the fact that after the veterinary assessment of each of the animals, the practice of euthanasia may be recommended for them, for the sake of the welfare of the animals, prior judicial authorization ».
The order states that the photographic report made by the Seprona team shows that the facilities “lack sanitary hygienic elements, in addition to the fact that the food received by the animals is inadequate”, showing the majority of the cattle “thinness and apparent signs of extreme malnutrition.
In the opinion of the instructor, there is a “serious and serious risk to the life and integrity of the animals” if the precautionary measure is not taken to refer their guardianship to the public administration so that they “return to an environment suitable for their normal development and satisfaction of your needs”.
The resolution of the Gomeran court is a pioneer in terms of the adoption of a precautionary measure for the protection of animals within the framework of a criminal proceeding. In fact, remember that the current Law of Criminal Procedure (LeCrim) does not contemplate any rule that regulates the preventive measures that could be applied to protect animals while processing, which is the case, a procedure for the crime of abuse.
When applying the criminal type that protects domestic animals, it invokes the 2015 Criminal Code amendment that extended the protection of domestic animals to “tamed” animals or those that do not live in the wild.
The instructor also invokes circular 7/2011 of the State Attorney General’s Office, which considers that those animals that “even if they are wild or wild, have been dominated by man to the point of getting used to their company, should also be protected by criminal means. , depending on it for their livelihood.
In reference to the possible crime against the environment, he underlines that the operation is “located in an area of public hydraulic domain, occupying the public channel and throwing the slurry into it, without stating the required authorization, so that over time and the temporary space that the present case lasts can not only lead to the continuation of damage to the general interest. Tomorrow, reports the order, it may make an eventual conviction and an eventual ecological restoration of the area absolutely unfeasible, in order to avoid further damage and harm to the public interest.
