Exclusive: PETA enters Mijas donkey taxi row: Global animal rights group offers mayor an electric tuk-tuk ‘in exchange for banning the trade’

ANIMAL rights group PETA has urged the mayor of Mijas to ban donkey taxis in exchange for an electric tuk-tuk. 

Last week, over 100 expats and Spaniards gathered in Mijas to urge the town hall to put an end to the ‘brutal’ donkey taxi trade. 

It came after a donkey driver attacked an activist who tried to film the animals made to haul heavy carriages during a recent heatwave.

READ MORE: Brits clash with locals in Spain’s Mijas as their demonstration against donkey taxis is met with a counterprotest: Police attend to keep the peace

The controversy prompted global animal rights group, PETA, to send a letter calling on the mayor of Mijas, Ana Carmen Mata Rico, to end the use of donkeys and other equines for tourist rides. 

They offered to provide Mijas with its first electric tuk-tuk to replace the ‘cruel’ trade. 

Other animal rights organisations, including Free Mijas Donkeys and Horses and PACMA (the Animal Rights Party Against Animal Mistreatment), have also taken action over the abuse of donkeys in Mijas by filing official complaints.

“Treating donkeys like living taxis and forcing them to pull heavy carriages during record-setting heat is not only cruel but also completely unnecessary,” says PETA Vice President for Europe Mimi Bekhechi.

“PETA urges the mayor of Mijas to retire these long-suffering donkeys and other equines and replace them with modern, electric tuk-tuks, starting with the one PETA stands ready to provide.”

READ MORE: EXCLUSIVE: Donkey row erupts as daughter of ‘burro’ taxi driver who ‘beat up British tourist’ in Spain’s Mijas slams activist for ‘harrassing her father and tourists’

In its letter, the group points out that forcing donkeys to carry humans and their luggage can strain their backs and joints and puts them at risk of collapsing or even dying in extreme heat. Donkeys used in the tourist trade frequently suffer from painful abrasions and wounds due to ill-fitting tack and are beaten with sticks by handlers and denied essentials like rest and water. Once their handlers decide they are no longer useful, most donkeys end up at a slaughterhouse.

PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment or abuse in any other way” – opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. 

For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk or follow the group on Facebook, X, TikTok, or Instagram.

READ MORE: British tourist ‘is savagely attacked by a donkey taxi driver’ on Spain’s Costa del Sol while ‘trying to document animal abuse’