This Wednesday, March 16, in the afternoon, a cow was found dead and mutilated in a meadow in Saint-Martin-d’Estreaux, about twenty kilometers north of Roanne. It was the breeder who made the macabre discovery before informing the gendarmes. Genitals and teats were cut off. A police investigation has been opened.
This cruel act committed in Saint-Martin-d’Estreaux echoes a series of mutilations of horses in the departments of Saône-et-Loire and Jura, and in other regions of France in the summer of 2020.
A horse found gutted in Grézolles in September 2020
In Roannais, on September 11, 2020, a horse was found disemboweled in a meadow in Grézolles. These mutilations had led the gendarmerie of the Loire to set up a device to reassure the persons in charge of the equestrian centers and the owners and to make prevention. By inviting them in particular to prohibit any individual intervention and to dial 17 to report any suspicious behavior or vehicle.
Still in the Roannais, a month earlier, on August 17, 2020, the owners of an equestrian estate in Sainte-Colombe-sur-Gand, had discovered the mutilated corpse of a horse who died of natural death intended for rendering.
There, the conclusions of the analyzes of the criminal research institute of the gendarmerie (IRCGN) had excluded any human intervention and accredited the thesis of a necrophagous animal action by small rodents or a badger. The prosecution had closed the case without further action.