“Over time, unfortunately, we get used to disasters. But there, it’s…” Annie Bénézech, the director of the SPA of the Montpellier metropolis (Hérault), does not have the words to describe what his team has faced in recent days: 42 dogs, some of whom are still only puppies, arrived at the Villeneuve-lès-Maguelone shelter, already well saturated. Until then, everyone had been accommodated at the Christmas Arch in Béziers. But an operation, carried out last Thursday, under the authority of the deputy public prosecutor in the presence of police officers and several associations, stripped this shelter of almost all of these animals. And its leader, suspected, in particular, of mistreatment and abandonment of animals, was placed in police custody.
In this structure, targeted by several complaints, “86 dogs were discovered (…), visibly malnourished or poorly cared for, kept in dirty spaces or unsuitable for their size and number, as well as nine tortoises (…) , eight Florida tortoises (…), two live snakes (…) and a dead snake, as well as numerous birds”, detailed Raphaël Balland, the public prosecutor of Béziers, Thursday, in a press release.
Dogs “were infested with fleas, worms…”
The 86 doggies were taken care of and cared for by the SPAs of Béziers and Montpellier. “On Thursday evening, when they arrived, I had two veterinarians come, who examined them, to check their state of health,” confides to 20 minutes Annie Bénézech, director of the Montpellier SPA. They dewormed them. They were infested with fleas, worms… And they were vaccinated. Only two of them could not be healed: a dog, who had a fever, and another, who suffered from a neurological problem. »
These sudden arrivals mean that today, the Villeneuve-lès-Maguelone refuge is on the verge of implosion. It is urgent, underlines Annie Bénézech, that dogs be adopted by Christmas, to free up space for the doggies who have just arrived, “and who are in distress”. The director of the Montpellier SPA hopes that its Christmas Open Days, scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, “will be a success”. “We can’t stack dogs on top of each other, that’s not possible! “, she laments.
Turtles “lived in a very polluted environment”
What about the other animals? Thursday, in Béziers, it’s the association SOS Reptiles who took care of them, indicates to 20 minutes its president and founder, Dorian Blayac, who has forgotten nothing of the images, and “the smells” which seized him during the operation. “We recovered all the non-domestic fauna, 27 animals in total,” he explains. Including doves, and a California quail. And Florida and Hermann’s tortoises, whose shells have been carefully cleaned. “They lived in a very polluted environment,” points out the president of the association.
SOS Reptiles volunteers also took care of a female Imperator boa, “completely overweight”, and “parasitized”. “We found her in a terrarium with lots of critters, including cockroaches,” says Dorian Blayac. We started to deworm it. » The association also recovered a Pantherophis guttatus snake, which suffered from “huge edema in the tail area. We hope it will be treatable.”
“Every person is presumed innocent until proven guilty,” recalls the incriminated shelter on its Facebook page.
All these animals were installed in the basements of the Amazon Greenhouse of Montpellier, which are not accessible to visitors, which the municipality graciously lent to the association. Little by little, SOS Reptiles is working to find longer-term solutions for these animals. We know, for the moment, that the turtledoves will soon join the residents of the Goupil Connexion association, in Brissac, to be, undoubtedly, soon, released into the wild, and that the turtles will be welcomed in the ponds of the Tortues Passion association, in Vergèze. “As for the other animals, we will continue to care for them, and they will soon be offered for adoption,” confides Dorian Blayac, who calls on animal lovers to help SOS Reptiles financially.
The One Voice association, which led investigation, between October 2022 and February 2023, within the Christmas Ark, in Béziers, is delighted that these animals have been taken care of. But “now that they are saved, we will not give up anything so that the person responsible [du refuge] is finally judged and condemned, and above all so that his breeding is definitively closed without ever again being able to keep animals,” she underlines, on his blog.
After the publication of the One Voice investigation on November 20, l’Arche de Noël recalled, for its part, on his Facebook page, that “every person is presumed innocent until found guilty by the competent authorities. Social networks, television, blogs, Internet users and video montages are not the new popular courts.” The manager of the incriminated shelter, aged 72, “has been unwell for many years, and has a disability”, continues the structure. And he has “always been there when the police, gendarmerie and firefighters have called on him for over forty years”. On Thursday, the prosecution clarified that it “will decide on the legal consequences” of this case “at the end of the investigations”.