Eighteen cats, one of which had a broken leg, crammed into a small, unsanitary apartment. The discovery took place on March 9, in Blagnac, near Toulouse. When the police, on a report from several neighbors worried about constantly hearing meowing, entered the accommodation of a forty-year-old man probably suffering from “Noah’s syndrome” which encourages him to collect animals, even when one cannot necessarily s take care of it properly.
The man was taken into custody and the cats were confiscated from him by decision of the prosecution. Given their number, the Toulouse Veterinary School (ENVT) could not examine them and the felines joined a veterinary clinic in Saint-Alban, before being placed in the SPA. “But for only one week”, explains police captain Céline Gardel, also president of the animal protection association. The 4 pattounes. It was with this second hat that she scoured the other associations to find a base for the colony of Blagnac cats. Their fate is therefore settled. They can even be adopted. But “today the situation is complicated, the shelters are saturated and refuse to welcome these animals which inevitably “block” places”, notes the specialized police officer.
“We are reaching the limits of the exercise”
Because article 99-1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure allows magistrates to confiscate and “place” animals found in cases of abuse. Prosecutors, police officers, gendarmes, are now trained and even experienced in these procedures. They therefore multiply, with their batches of judicial confiscations, for dogs, horses, donkeys, sometimes even cows. “We can only welcome the concrete application of the law,” said Céline Gardel. But shelters are not expandable. “There, we are really touching the limits of the exercise”, deplores the policewoman who could multiply the examples of animals saved from the claws of their masters, like these “three staff [chiens] recovered recently in Sarcelles” but that the Paris SPA cannot accommodate. Moreover, in complex cases, there is no question of offering animals for adoption during the procedure, when their owner is not found guilty. “For those, it’s a double penalty. They were mistreated and sometimes find themselves condemned to live in 5 m2. »
But Céline Gardel and Les 4 pattounes are not the type to let down. The association defends the idea of creating refuges serving specifically to accommodate animals subject to judicial confiscation. La Toulousaine is in Paris this week to defend the case with her hierarchy. She is even invited to the Luxembourg Palace to try to convince senators.