• Emaciated, wounded, untreated... Every year several thousand abused animals are removed from their breeders in France.
  • Regularly, the veterinary services of the State turn to associations, such as the Brigitte Bardot Foundation or the Oaba (Work of assistance to slaughterhouse animals) to take care of these animals. At least pending a court decision. But they more often become owners at the end.
  • These associations sometimes struggle to respond to the ever-increasing number of requests. In recent days, Oaba has launched a petition for the state to create a network of shelters for abused farm animals throughout the country.

On March 10, at the request of the authorities, the Brigitte Bardot Foundation had recovered 455 cattle at once, in a farm in Seine-Maritime. "In total denial, the farmer was overwhelmed and the situation of his livestock dramatic," says the NGO, referring to "emaciated or even cachectic animals", "injured and untreated", "some even unidentified"...

This time, this seizure had a certain media echo, the breeder in question having participated, a few years earlier, in the program "Love and in the meadow". But it is enough to go back to the Twitter feed of the Foundation or that of Oaba (Work of assistance to slaughterhouse animals), the other association regularly solicited by the veterinary services of the State, to realize that these seizures of animals abused in farms or clandestine slaughterhouses are frequent.



"Thousands of animals seized every year"

"We are talking about several thousand animals each year," says Frédéric Freund, director of the Oaba, which collects about 2,000 a year. An order of magnitude that Christophe Marie also gives for the Brigitte Bardot Foundation of which he is the deputy director.

The two NGOs then place them, at their own expense, in boarding in partner farms. At least initially, until a court decision seals the final fate of these animals. "But these seizures come as a last resort, when everything that has been done to help the farmer regain his footing fails," explains Frédéric Freund. It is rare then that justice entrusts these removed animals again to their breeder. »

In other words, very regularly, these farm animals become the property of both associations. For the vast majority of them, Oaba sells them, non-profit, to farmers. "But we also happen, when financially possible, to remove certain animals from the breeding circuit," says Frédéric Freund. Typically the cow that is 17 years old, the sheep that limps or sometimes also animals that have a rather particular history ... They are then distributed in the forty partner farms of the association and quietly end their lives. "We currently have 550 animals in this herd of happiness," he says.

NGOs that stick their tongues out

For its part, the Brigitte Bardot Foundation has come to own a herd of 10,000 farm animals. It must be said that the association does not procrastinate. "All the animals entrusted to us are boarded until the end of their lives," says Christophe Marie. Either in the four shelters of the association, or with about thirty partner farms. "These are often former breeders or sons of breeders who have reoriented their farms on crops and then benefit, with these pensions, from additional income," says the deputy director of the Foundation.

But these pensions have a cost, agrees Christophe Marie: "We allocate to this activity, the main one of the Foundation, a budget of 6 million euros this year, fed solely by the donations we receive. "

These associations are sticking their tongues out, especially as they are increasingly solicited. "Fifteen years ago, we were recovering 500 animals per year, compared to 2,000 today, and we are far from being able to meet all the demands of the state's veterinary services," says Frédéric Freund.

In February 2021, the Brigitte Bardot Foundation launched a first SOS by asking, for the first time in its 35-year history, for financial assistance from the government. "We had been so solicited at the beginning of that year that we had already almost exhausted the 3.5 million euros we had budgeted that year for pensions," recalls Christophe Marie. In the end, we did not obtain any aid from the State even if, since then, the transport costs of its seized animals are no longer borne by the associations. »

Reception facilities in each department?

Two years later, it was Oaba's turn to sound the alarm. A few days ago, the association launched a petition calling on the State to invest more on the subject. Specifically, the association calls for the creation of a network of reception structures for farm animals abused and managed by the public authorities. "At least one center per department," asks Frédéric Freund, "who imagines them as immediate reception structures for seized animals. Kind of buffer zones through which they would at least pass the time to settle administrative and financial issues, "he says. "It would also allow us, the association, to have a little more time to organize ourselves to find more sustainable solutions to these animals," abounds Christophe Marie.

But in Oaba, we see even further. "These reception facilities could also be used to accommodate animals found wandering," says its director. Here again, the phenomenon tends to increase and can have dramatic consequences. To the point of creating fatal road accidents. However, Frédéric Freund notes that mayors give up acting when they are told ramblings, "for lack of structures to accommodate these animals".

The State expected as a conductor...

And then there is this new European regulation on the international transport of animals. "It imposes on livestock farms compulsory unloading of herds transported, beyond a certain number of hours of driving, to allow the animals to rest," says Frédéric Freund. It is 29 hours, for example, for cattle. But this regulation is not always respected, precisely for lack of stopping points. "There are only about twenty in France," laments Frédéric Freund. Here again, these reception structures would make it possible to expand this network, particularly in strategic locations that currently lack them. There are no stopping points for example in the Nord department, Savoie, Pyrénées-Atlantiques... »

Oaba assures that local authorities are already in favour of the creation of such reception centres. "It would also be possible to obtain European funds for these reception structures," says Frédéric Freund, who then expects the State to play the role of conductor in this project. He has an appointment on May 25 at the Ministry of Agriculture to plead his case.

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