The concerns of horse owners are growing as the toll grows heavier. Since the start of the year, around thirty horses and ponies have been stabbed, mutilated, all over France, victims of barbaric and targeted acts.
All regions are affected: Finistère, Deux-Sèvres, Puy-de-Dôme, Seine-Maritime, Eure-et-Loir, Vaucluse, Jura, Allier and Moselle where on February 12, a four-year-old horse was found dead at the agricultural school of Château-Salins, his right ear “surgically” cut.
New provisions
While the phenomenon seems to be intensifying in recent weeks throughout France, that a robot portrait of one of the suspected attackers, spotted in the Yonne, is circulating, some owners of horses in northern Moselle and Meurthe-et -Moselle have taken unprecedented measures to protect their equines.
“We started to install presence detector lights all over the stable, the dog remains present all night and we put padlocks on the gates. But I am especially worried about my broodmares who are free in Garche. I contacted the Hettange-Grande gendarmerie to intensify the rounds in the area to be a little more reassured. We are still waiting a few days and if the attacks continue to multiply, then we will put all our horses to safety, ”explains Virginie Venon, head of the Thionville-Manom equestrian center.
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“We must not fall into paranoia”
“The patrols are sensitized and carry out reinforced surveillance on the areas where there are horses. They are responsible in particular for identifying any potentially suspicious individual or vehicle, ”confirms a senior officer of the Thionville gendarmerie company.
In Tucquegnieux, in northern Meurthe-et-Moselle, professional rider Guillaume Licardi has also taken drastic measures to protect his horses. “We took the matter very seriously as soon as the mutilations started by alerting everyone, our riders, the neighbors… We installed hunting cameras with detection in our parks, which allows us to have 24-hour surveillance. hours a day and signs on the fences indicating the presence of cameras. We try to equip ourselves as well as possible, that is reassuring. But be careful, we must not fall into paranoia either. “
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