Asking for a ban on horse drawn carriages would be a hurried and unrealistic demand, animal rights activist and TV presenter Moira Delia told The Malta Independent.
A total ban on the traditional karrozin would result in the slaughter of all the horses, something which could only be avoided if the government took over the care of them, Delia said.
A better, and more realistic solution to this situation related to horse drawn carriages would be the imposition of a time-frame ban for the summer months, Delia explained. Such a ban, she said, would be in force from July up to mid-September and would stop horse-drawn carriages from being used between 12 and 4:30pm, when the summer heat would be at its worst.
Furthermore, Delia appealed to car drivers to be more considerate to carriages drivers and the horses when commuting.
Lucienne Selvagi, another activist, also told this newsroom that a total ban on these horse-drawn carriages would solve nothing and in fact be of more detriment to the horses themselves. This is because the horses are working animals and once they are used to a certain lifestyle, it will do them more harm than good to have them living in stables for the rest of their lives which is what would happen as Malta does not have the space or resources to keep them out in the countryside.
In an ideal world, Selvagi said, there would be limitations on the times in which the horses are worked, with the horses being rested during the summer peak hours. However, Selvagi appreciates the difficulty in such a solution because most of the work in this industry comes in during these hours from tourists disembarking from cruise liners.
Furthermore, Selvagi stressed that the vast majority of these horses are looked after extremely well and that most kucciera own more than one horse, meaning that the horses themselves do not actually work every day.
With all these notions at play, Selvagi said it is a very difficult situation to find a solution for, but she reiterated that a total ban will solve nothing.
She did however appeal for a higher presence of enforcement officers in Valletta and severe penalisations on cars which are found to be parked under the shades which are meant for horses. Furthermore, she said, more supervision is needed on water points to stop vandalism on them. Selvagi said that it is normally the horse owners themselves who very often foot the costs for these water points, but they then find the outlets not working.
She also appealed to local councils to be more cooperative when more shades for the horses are asked for.