Residential and environmental associations ask Malaga prosecution to investigate death of multiple birds in Huelin park

A total of 13 residential and environmental associations have joined forces to take a statement to the environmental prosecution of Malaga on Friday, 5 September, in which they demand an investigation into the death of about 20 birds in Parque Huelin and in Parque del Oeste.

The statement released on Thursday expresses the organisations' demand for "a rigorous investigation and an official, rational and credible explanation of what has happened". The finger is pointed at the parks and gardens department of the city council because, according to the complainants, it does not expand its activity in the summer, "unlike other municipal services".

"We want there to be a clear and public change next year so that these events do not happen again," say residents and ecologists, highlighting the need to set up a service that would care for urban species, both animals and plants.

According to the complaint, during the last week of August, the Parque del Oeste residential movement asked the city council to explain how various dead birds had appeared in the park's pond, the state of which has been deplorable. The text describes the "evident nutrient loading of the stagnant water aggravated by the high temperatures of the last fortnight of August", the rubbish and the rubble. "The water had a green colour that showed the degradation and abandonment of the pond," residents say.

"A few days later, ducks, seagulls and pigeons appeared lifeless or very ill in the Huelin park," the letter states, adding that there were birds "convulsing and dying, without municipal workers coming or taking any action".

For these organisations, the city council has acted "late and under pressure", installing new pipes in the Parque del Oeste to improve the water purification system and closing the Parque Huelin to the public from Wednesday, 3 September, onwards due to a possible case of bird flu, which has not been confirmed yet.

"The objective conditions in which the water was found: stagnant, degraded and dirty, suggest that they were not the best conditions for maintaining the integrity of the habitat where the species that live in these artificial ponds in both parks develop, which we suppose was the cause of the death of the specimens found in such deplorable conditions. This is evidence of the negligent work of those responsible for maintenance," the letter says. It is signed by the Málaga Ha Vesos platform, the residential associations Torrijos and La Cooperación, Ecologistas en Acción, Bosque Urbano, Red Málaga por el Clima, World Wildlife Fund, Merkaético Cooperativa, Fridays for Future Málaga, Asociación Ciriana, SEO Birdlife Málaga and Coordinadora Estatal por la Defensa del Sistema Público de Pensiones.