One Voice’s investigation into a 5-star pound: the industrial slaughter of cats and dogs
The third part of One Voice’s investigation into pounds in France. After having condemned some peoples’ abuse, we have wanted to understand how those who are regulated work, “good in all respects” in the eyes of local councils who give them the task of “cleaning” public streets of animals that are wondering around or are strays. It was horrific there. This time legally.
Within pounds, they get the very best. Our investigators infiltrated one of the best rated “animal centres” in France to confirm what is referred to as the “management” of cats and dogs that are lost, abandoned, or born on the streets. Following our investigations at SIVU 47 and Passerelles, two establishments that are merrily circumventing regulations, it was important to have an idea of “best practices” within this sector.
Public “service”
The organisation where we led the investigation prides itself on its website as being exemplary and as doing everything possible for the happiness of its “residents”. You had to make yourself very small and film with a hidden camera to get a clear picture.
Around once a week, a packed truck drops off its load: rams, wallabies… you can find all kinds of animals inside. But mainly it is many cats and dogs, rescued from the roadside with no “owner” in sight, who end up there.
Delegated by the local council to ensure a public service remit, this private company is funded, as in most cities in France, by local taxes. Its role: to rid the local territory of stray animals, the responsibility for which lies with the mayor. The law in fact states that the town councillor can, by decree, place them in a “drop-off place suitable for taking them in and keeping them”, with the caretaker bearing the cost in cases where the “owner” does not come forward.
“Suitable drop-off place”
What actually is this? Rows of tiny concrete kennels, dogs abandoned in their own excrement, cats stored in transport crates at the back of dark rooms, an upside down infirmary… This was the spectacle witnessed by our investigators when they entered the “standard” premises where the animals are shut up.
In this world full of anxious barks and plaintive meows, new arrivals are quickly brought up to speed. No staff to reassure them, lavish them with an affectionate gesture, or even just some attention. Only their peers are there to tell them about the less than warm environment.
At least the bowls are full here, of course, but under what conditions? Incomprehension, stress, and cries for help are everywhere. Tearful and terrified looks are behind each wire fence. Only a few still express a little bit of joy when they hear the sound of footsteps. No doubt they still believe in human friendship and in a bright future. Not for long…
Death row
Because their days are numbered. After the eight-day time period, if no one has come to reclaim them, most of them are killed. At an industrial rate, even. We have to make way for the next lot and above all do the maths: it is a very profitable activity.
Our investigators filmed everything: the terror of those condemned, the capturing of dogs with a lasso allowing them to them bite themselves, the administration of lethal doses by a robotic and violent veterinarian. Abandoned by everyone except their traumatised cell neighbours, dozens of perfectly healthy animals die every day on this death row before being eliminated.
Into a skip
During this investigation, our investigators crossed paths with many of them, each more endearing than the last. However, they found them in the form of corpses, killed mercilessly, guilty of not having been loved.
Regularly, the pound employees pile the frozen or still warm bodies into a huge container to send them to the slaughterhouse. The curtain then falls for the final time on these trampled, massacred, and completely invisible lives. A way that is as efficient as it is discreet for the State to erase the tragedy of abandonment, mistreatment, and straying with public money rather than funding a proper policy to fix the problem.
Stop the code of silence!
Rally with us to break the deafening silence surrounding these cover-up mass killings. Our investigation is there to shed light on them and call them out. We demand transparency about what is happening right now, every day, in our country’s pounds where thousands of animals are killed legally on the assembly line. As long as our leaders put up with it or prefer to turn a blind eye, they remain complicit in scandalous practices even though solutions exist. Elsewhere in Europe, they take care of their animals. France must take inspiration from them!
One Voice will not stop campaigning for our country to commit to a large-scale neutering programme to resolve the issue of feline straying and ban the online sale of animals, one of the main sources of abandonments and slaughters in pounds.
It is high time to call on our leaders to take action. What is the project? Taking in animals or getting rid of them? Faced with inhumanity, what do politicians do? Are they even aware that thousands of cats and dogs are killed every year? To ensure that they are, share our videos with your elected representatives: mayors, MPs, regional presidents, and the Minister of Agriculture. And sign the petition below to demand an end to the code of silence and euthanasia in pounds.
Translated from the French by Joely Justice