“A unique beach adapted for dogs in Europe, a true “Doggy-Beach”, which has the necessary services so that you and your pet can experience wonderful days of relaxation, and which has everything you need so that your days of sea ??are perfect”. This is how it is defined on the Alicante City municipal tourism website
The reality is that the only sign that there is a “doggy-beach” in the right place is faded and discolored billboards and a destroyed fence where a sign indicates that there is a pipican. There was someone who apparently thought that the dogs were going to limit themselves to doing their business there, having a beach to spread out. It was inaugurated in 2016, with a beach bar that is still mentioned in glowing reviews, all of which are more than four years old, that one can find one on specialized websites.
The truth is that there are many people who, given the current ban on the rest of the beaches, go to this one in Aguamarga with their dogs, despite the lack of services. The worst thing is that many fishermen do the same at sunset, with the risk that the presence of hooks on the shore implies. And many lovers of the privacy of a virgin beach, who bypass the express prohibition on driving their vehicles and take advantage of a service track to enter the sand and camp in the supposedly dog-friendly space.
Even today, the beach appears in numerous listings on tourist and specialized websites as one of the eleven existing in the province. For example, in redcanina.es it is said about it: “This beach for dogs in Alicante has hooks, adapted umbrellas, specific litter bins, and platforms with disposable containers to use as feeders or drinkers. You can also find a kiosk where it is sold, In addition to soft drinks, food for our dogs”. No, you won’t.
It cannot be said that the Department of Tourism has not tried, because both in 2022 and this year, it put out to tender a contract to operate the service from May 1 to October 15, which was to consist of a food truck and a umbrellas. Without success, so the beach is, in fact, one more of the increasingly scarce virgin beaches on the coast, where dogs, yes, can run around without risk of their owners being fined. Nor are they, apparently, the numerous caravans and vehicles that, especially on weekends, enter the area defying the prohibitions on passage.
Precisely yesterday it was learned that Ecologistas en Acción has introduced dog beaches without a prior environmental evaluation as a new cause to mark them with one of the 48 ‘black flags’ that each year the organization awards to the sandbanks in the worst state of the Spanish coast due to their pollution or mismanagement.
Ecologists in Action has delivered 48 ‘Black Flags’ since 2005, two per province and one for each autonomous city, to denounce the environmental problems faced by the 8,000 kilometers of the Spanish coastline. This year, the report warns of the existence of numerous scientific studies that show the high impact that walking with dogs causes on coastal fauna, mainly birds, since it is the exclusive habitat for feeding, resting and reproduction for many of them.
“When we allow a dog to chase birds, even if they don’t catch them, we cause them significant stress, we prevent or make it difficult for them to obtain food, we deprive them of rest and we force them to invest a high energy expenditure in having to flee” , specifies the spokesperson for Ecologists, Ana Aldarias.
In this way, the NGO regrets that these canine beaches are a booming initiative taken by city councils in which, usually, environmental criteria are not taken into account and in which those beaches considered of lesser tourist value are selected, which paradoxically tend to coincide with those with the greatest ecological value when, in their opinion, it should be just the other way around.
