Online pet sales and donations on sites such as Facebook, outlawed in Belgium since 2017, are on the rise according to a report by La Dernière Heure. The newspaper reveals that, despite the ban on the sales of animals online, breeders and individuals continue to sell or give away puppies and kittens with impunity.
"At the very beginning, it was zero tolerance but the authorities quickly became laxer for closed groups," Gaëtan Sgualdino, president of the animal protection organisation SPA in La Louvière, told DH. "Many of the animals found in shelters come from donations or Facebook sales. It’s a free market without control."
"There are a lot of people who adopt animals for free in these groups and then resell them immediately," he added. "There are even associations that play this game: they scrutinise ads on social networks, take free animals and then put them up for adoption, claiming €200 in fees. This is clearly unfair because these pseudo-associations do not pay all the charges that shelters normally pay."
Scammers who exploit people’s love of animals and charge exorbitant fees are another concern for Gaëtan Van Goidsenhoven, the president of the Veeweyde animal shelter in Brussels.
Related News
- Is pedigree important when buying a dog in Belgium?
- Tricky teens: New study shows that dogs also go through adolescence
"Scammers post ads with beautiful photos and wait for a bite," he told DH. "When contacted, they ask for a lot of information from interested persons or claim that the animal is abroad and ask for money to bring it to Belgium. There are also scammers who pose as strange rescue associations and claim significant fees, under the pretext of rescuing dogs or cats. People think they are doing the right thing and are willing to spend large sums of money only to end up without an animal or with one which has been trafficked."
According to Van Goidsenhoven, these are well-oiled procedures that claim many victims, many of which rarely get justice. "There are not many prosecutions," he said. "Animal trafficking remains a real problem in Belgium. Too many animals enter our territory illegally."
