Tension rises in Mijas between donkey taxi owners and animal rights protesters

At one o’clock this Thursday afternoon the latest demonstration calling for an end to the donkey taxis in Mijas Pueblo began. The gathering took place in front of the statue dedicated to the donkeys above the large car park in the village, right in front of the place where the donkey taxis and horse drawn carriages wait for business, together with their drivers and handlers.

With participants dressed in white and with ropes around their necks, protest banners in hand and one even sporting a donkey mask, the protest was going according to plan, with just over a hundred people taking part. That was before a large group of people arrived, made up of the donkey owners, their families and some of the villagers, and stood in front of them.

“A round of applause for the donkeys,” the new arrivals called out. And the tension in Plaza Virgen de la Peña rose several notches in a matter of seconds. The security cordon made up of mostly Local Police was promptly reinforced with officers from the National Police and Guardia Civil.

The demonstrators began to complain about the presence of this other, parallel demonstration. “We have our permits, they don’t and you are allowing them to be here,” some of them yelled at police.

“Enough of animal abuse,” shouted the protest participants, many of whom had come together over social media groups set up to demand the release of the Mijas donkeys.

“This is our ‘pueblo’,” the donkey owners and their families replied. One of them even took a donkey and planted it between one group and the other.

“We are only asking for an end to a medieval activity, we don’t want more tourists riding on donkeys. Mijas receives European funds and therefore should follow the recommendations of Europe on the subject. They say that the donkey taxi is something cultural; in Africa genital mutilation is also cultural and that does not mean it should continue,” defended the organiser of the animal protest, French-born local resident Anne Blitz.

Blitz explained that what the group is proposing is that the council replace the animals with tuk tuk bike taxis and that these should be offered to the current donkey owners so that they can continue to work on the tourist rides. “We are looking for something fair for everyone.”

The group also suggests that the local authorities could also buy the donkeys and set up sanctuaries where they could live in the wild.

In reply to this, the donkey owners themselves explained there were around twenty families depending on this business. Álvaro Jiménez from the Asociación del Asno de Pura Raza Andaluza donkey association said that what the animal rights demonstrators are demanding is not in the best interests of the animals. “If they take away these families’ livelihoods, they will eventually sell the animals to a dealer, who in turn will slaughter them, because if an animal loses its function, it is useless. It is not logical what they are asking for,” he said.

He added that in recent decades, since more machinery has been used in the countryside, “thousands of donkeys have been slaughtered in Spain, while in Mijas there are still 61 donkeys thanks to the activity they carry out.”

The atmosphere in Mijas Pueblo has been more charged in recent weeks after animal rights supporters accused the donkey owners of mistreatment in recent particularly hot weather. The owners denied this, however earlier this month Mijas council adapted its bylaws to prevent the animals being used from 12pm to 6pm when a yellow or amber hot weather warning is in place.

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