Campaign calling for horse and carriages to be banned from streets of Palma

One of Palma’s most popular, if not controversial, tourist attractions could become a thing of the past.Earlier this week one of the horses used to draw the tourist carriages through Palma, collapsed in the heat in  the recently renamed called Avenida  Adolfo Suarez in front of the Cathedral.
The horse was apparently just setting off on a tour around the city centre when it fainted and scores of holiday makers and passers by rushed to the aid of the carriage’s owners and began dousing the horse in water in an attempt to cool the animal down as it lay collapsed on the road.
The incident, one of many, prompted the movement Change.org to launch an online petition calling for the carriages to be banned from the streets of Palma and within just a few days, 7,700 people had signed the petition and the number is continuing to rise rapidly.
“For a number of years now the number of incidents involving horse and carriages has been mounting. Carriages are being nudged by impatient drivers while tragic accidents have happened due to the heat or the animals being over worked. Last year a horse collapsed in Jaime III and was brutally beaten by its owner in front of the general public,” Change.org said in a statement.
In another incident, a horse bolted and died last September.
Change.org hopes to collect thousands more signatures and then present the petition to Palma City Council in an attempt to force the local authority into banning the horse and carriages. “They could be replaced by classic cars in order to prevent the horse owners losing their jobs, just like many other advanced and conscientiousness cities have done across the world.”