The operation of breeding ducks had been pinned in June 2020 by the combination L214. Images showed ducks wading in feces and corpses of animals littered the floor of an unsafe building.
Le Monde
A duck farmer, installed in the Landes, was sentenced Monday, November 8, ten-month suspended sentence for mistreatment of animals. The criminal court of Dax matched worth around 3,000 euros in fines for various offenses and a ban on exercising professional activities related to the animals for five years.
The operator had was pinned in June 2020 by the combination L214 , which published a video showing breeding ducks living in a flood of excrement and dead animals rotting, wading in substandard building Lichos in the Pyrenees-Atlantiques.
The association had complained to the prosecutor of Pau for animal cruelty, abandonment, but also damage the environment. Shortly after, the Pyrenees-Atlantiques prefecture ordered the closure of the unsafe building and delivered a “total and immediate ban” to exploit “until her up to standard.” The breeder had several farm sites in the Landes region, but also in the Basque Country, according to New France 3 Aquitaine .
” This is not what we wanted to do “
The breeder Landes recognized the facts before the court, explaining to have been overtaken by the situation, as reported by France Bleu Dax . “This is not what we wanted to do. Between the avian crisis, market crises, the crisis of Covid and our buildings hit by a storm, we did not succeed,” he testified the operator 43 years. A “hardness of the agricultural world with a succession of crises” that the Crown has recognized: “I want to hear the problems, but in this case, not everything is the fault of external circumstances,” said the vice Attorney.
“This sentence is a bit difficult in my opinion […] because his farm was the project of a lifetime,” responded his lawyer Navy Beard, comments relayed by France 3. “And above all, [the disqualification] will involve unfortunately for him retraining with the situation of difficulties that we know. in my view, the court has not taken into account the financial difficulties that were his, which exist unquestionably and which, in my view, were intended to color the issue and understand the real context of the commission of the offense, “she added
In turn, the co-founder of L214 association, Brigitte Gothière, said in a press release that it was” an important decision […] which will also be a strong signal for the entire profession. ” “The minimum rules on animal welfare are not to be taken lightly,” she added. The operator must also pay damages to two associations defending animals, L214, who had brought civil party said it.