“A dug hole” with “five animal corpses” piled up inside as well as “carcasses that have been decomposing for a while.” On Thursday, the Compagnons des animaux association published a video on its Facebook account showing several sheep corpses piled up on a private plot of land in Lordat, Ariège. “A disaster,” the association wrote.
Its president, Amandine Méline, interviewed by BFM TV. com, said it had been alerted by holidaymakers surprised by a “nauseating smell” who came across these animal corpses. The president of the association also noted that “the sheep’s ears had been cut off to prevent their identification and that of their owner.”
She points out that this private plot is “less than a kilometer from a campsite” and that a breeder must “notify the services so that they come and remove the dead animal.” Amandine Méline is particularly concerned about whether the animals that died were due to bluetongue.
An investigation opened
After this macabre discovery, she filed a complaint “for animal abuse and environmental degradation,” the media reports. An investigation was opened by Guilhem Renoux, the deputy public prosecutor based in Foix, entrusted to the Ariège gendarmerie group assisted by the French Office for Biodiversity.
According to the Lordat municipality, contacted by BFM.com, this problem is “recurring” due to “sheep disease”. The breeder is said to have dumped the carcasses without the possibility of “having a rapid intervention from the knacker’s yard, which was overwhelmed”. However, the municipality has not given any authorization for the dumping. An intervention to remove the dead animals was to take place this Friday.