Police have received several reports of suspicious acts involving greyhounds on the hunting circuit as part of an investigation into several dog corpses that recently washed up on the beach, the Ostend police zone said on Monday. Investigators are also appealing for witnesses.
Between November and the end of December 2023, five dog corpses washed up in Ostend. Another body was found on the beach at Nieuwpoort-Bad on 17 December, and a walker reportedly threw the body of a similar dog into a dustbin in Oostdunkerque after discovering it on a beach. The bin was subsequently emptied, so the dog's body could not be recovered.
"However, the description of the body matches that of previous discoveries," said a local police spokesman in December.
On both occasions, the animals were young and not microchipped. The dogs appear to belong to the same breed, but the state of decomposition of the bodies has made it impossible to determine precisely.
"The investigation has been underway for some time," said Chief Constable Philip Caestecker. "It's suspicious that several bodies have washed up in such a short space of time and we want to do everything we can to solve this case."
