| Update on Dolphinarium and PEACEAnimals News Gretchen DeWitt - PEACEAnimals | |
| go to original May 10, 2016 |
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"Teach our Children to Respect Nature" - sign in front of GICSA´s La Isla project
At hot, high noon on Saturday, an estimated two to three hundred exuberant citizens of Mexico, Canada and the United States, dressed in blue, gathered in front of the construction site of La Isla, a development project of GICSA.
The protest, organized by "Empty the Tanks" (founded on Earth Day in 1970) was against a dolphinarium at the new La Isla mall. The tank has been proposed by GICSA, developer of La Isla.
Traffic was stopped every few minutes from 12:00 to 2:00 pm by police, so protesters on the other side of the very busy Avenida México could safely cross over.
Signs were held up asking honks of support, and drivers of cars, vans, public buses, and taxis responded exuberently with tooting horns, thumbs up signals and shouts of encouragement.
If you are against the proposed dolphinarium and/or if you have alternative suggestions regarding entertainment and amusement for La Isla shopping complex, please send your message to: Samuel Jalife at sjalife@gicsa.com.mx.
Even better, if you are prepared not to shop at a mall with a dolphinarium, please let Samuel Jalife know. Thank you.
Read related: A Dolphinarium for Puerto Vallarta? Empty the Tanks?
On Sunday, it was the turn of PV ANIMAL to sponsor a special "Pets for Life" clinic on the Isla Cuale. This is the excellent vet team with which PEACEAnimals has a work agreement. When I left the Isla at 9:20 in the morning, fifty-eight cats and dogs had been registered. Returning to the Isla Cuale in the late afternoon to walk our dogs, I stopped at Balam Balam, the fish "restaurant" next to the ríver. At the east end of the serpentine path at the side of the dirt road called Primera del Río, there is a long wood table and about four or five smaller tables under a palapa roof. No walls. Two shrimp tostadas topped with a slice of avocado - 70 pesos.
Calendar for special Sunday one-day clinics on the Isla Cuale, where so many cats and kittens are abandoned. Puro Gato will hold adoptions on the isla from 11:00 am - 2:00 pm on these same dates:
• June 5 - Shannon Beston
• July 3 - PEACEAnimals
• August 7 - SPCA
• September 4 - Angelicat
• October 2 - PuRR Project
• November 6 - PV ANIMAL
• December 4 - Puro Gato
The above groups have hired and will pay pets for life 4,500 pesos for the sterilization of 30 animals. If numbers are greater, the same organizations will request donations from their supporters to make up the difference. For each cat or dog over the number 30, sponsors of the Sunday clinics will be charged 150 pesos.
About twenty minutes north of centro and about a mile east of the port where cruise ships dock, is colonia Jardines del Puerto - "Gardens of the Port." There are no gardens and this is one of many neighborhoods in Puerto Vallarta that most tourists or residents never see. This colorless colonia is home to a large collection of tall, dismal apartment buildings that resemble a neglected housing project. There is a large square of mostly dry grass with a couple of white iron benches, a small, modern church, a school, and not much else. The clinic took place in a vacant white cement home owned by a couple of sisters in their early twenties. Very sweet and shy, one with vegetable-dyed orange hair and the other with pink and lavender hair, they were reluctant to have their pictures taken.
When I arrived at 10:00 am on Thursday, it was too late to photograph pet owners with their cats and dogs. People had arrived at 8:00 am to stand in line to register, and had all left by 9:00. Frank Ohly, our regular volunteer, said a couple had brought in a black female Great Dane, and because the dog was too large to fit into a kennel, she was immediately sedated, spayed and taken home.
Total sterilizations in Colonia Jardines del Puerto from May 3-6 was 152: Male dogs - 20; Female dogs - 52; Male cats - 34; Female cats - 46.
PEACEAnimals does not buy advertising or pay for posters, flyers, megaphone announcers or locations. All monies raised go directly to the actual costs of the clinics.
All pet registration forms with signatures of owners or rescuers are submitted by Dr. Poli to the local department of health, with copies to PEACEAnimals.
Clinic schedule, including directions and other clinic information are always on the PEACEAnimals website and on Gretchen's blog.
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