Not a pleasant weekend in more ways than one - with the spanish community and services, once again, proving just how useless they can be.
At 6 in the evening, the gardener for the neighbour below, "whatsapp´d" me to say there was a dead mountain goat in the pool and he didn´t like to touch it "in case it was diseased". This was 2 hours after he found it and 15minutes before it went dark. Thanks a bunch.
I went down and found this young goat - which we had seen in the garden a few times earlier in the week - dead and floating in the swimming pool where it had drowned (there being no steps like our pool, only a ladder to get in and out). Hardly likely to be diseased as it had managed to jump over a 6 foot fence a few times to get in. I asked the gardener who should be informed (with these mountain goats being protected by law) and he said he didn´t know, but maybe the police. A few more back and forths about possibilities, but he said he had an urgent appointment that was taking him away until late Saturday, so I was on my own.
I ´phoned the "policia local" number(s) a couple of times, but got a message that they were not connected and unavailable - and this on their supposed emergency line (!).
Lucky it wasn´t a burglary, robbery or death I thought to myself.
I didn´t sleep very well thinking about the poor little furry visitor and was up from about 3:30 am. As soon as I thought there might be someone available, I ´phoned the police again - ánd when they actually answered but told me they would have to get in touch with some sort of animal rescue organisation (maybe undertakers?). No more heard for about 4 hours until a girl called me to confirm what had happened and, on finding out it was in a pool, was started to talk about getting some sort of lifeboat service or something similar. When I said it was at the edge of a swimming pool and I could reach it without any trouble, she told me she would get in touch with the "appropriate animal people". I knew it was reachable as luckily I had actually gone down earlier in the morning and covered it with a bin liner as I had visions of a crow / raven / eagle perched on its distended belly and pecking at the soft bits.....´(not a pleasant thought)
Crime Scene Photo
Another fruitless hour, until the police ´phoned back and said "there was no one available as it was the weekend, but someone would come on Monday".
I pointed that over that period, it would be better out of the pool than in, and that I would be prepared to do it. I also suggested that if no one was interested, I could also put the body in one of the local bins, but that made him almost choke, with a "no, no, no, the authorities need to recove the body". We agreed that I would get it from the pool and put it in a bag in the shade, ready for the "experts"
In one of her (many) moments of brilliance, G suggested using one of our (previously reusable) large Lidl garden-rubbish bags which are about .5 cubic metres and have handles on top and bottom - with the idea of getting the body into that by using rakes and hoes, then getting the whole caboodle out of the pool by the handles - and it worked an absolute treat (- first having cut some holes in the bottom to allow the water to escape), and within 5 minutes we had it wrapped and lying in the shade with a couple of rocks as headstones.
... Monday the gardener came and muttered some excuse about not touching diseased animals in the campo.
.... Monday afternoon and evening nothing at all - no one came to collect
... and now it is Tuesday and there it still lies four-days-dead. I sprayed some anti-ant stuff around the bag and just hoped the stones were enough to deter foxes or whatever. Just ´phoned the policia yet again this morning and they implied they would come - I am not holding my breath (but they will be when they eventually take it away)
... Wednesday morning I phoned my pal Juan at the Niño and asked for help as the body was still there and no-one had been. Withing 15 minutes he was back to me and said the "guarda Rural" would be there within 30minutes. By the time we got back home from Fuengi (I had called Juan either side of the dentist´s chair) the lone ranger was at the gate.
He put the whole kid and caboodle into a large plastic bag (first having donned a pair of plastic gloves) and told me that the animal was sick and it was better to throw our garden bag away (like we would have reused it). I asked what he would do with the whole package, only to be told he would throw it in one of the rubbish bins, then clean his hands with alcohol - basically what I would have done last Friday.
...Today I reemed out the gardener for his part in the whole affair and that he left me trying to organise things with the police and animal welfare groups. His main excuse was that all these mountain goats have "mange" so you cannot touch them (I pointed to his gloves), whereupon he also showed that he had contacted said ranger who had told him to "put it in a bag and then in the bassura". His final comment sums up Spain (or UK in the sixties) "but it´s not my job to do that, because he gets paid to do it".
Yeah - thinking like that proves why you will never be more than a jobbing gardener (thought but unsaid).
I have always said that the policia local (employed by the council) are nothing but glorified traffic wardens - now they have certainly shown that they are last responders (or maybe even non-responders)
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