The Belgian organisation for the defence of animal rights, Gaia, has filed a complaint against a chicken farmer in the Luxembourg region. After learning that his chickens had laid eggs contaminated with fipronil, the farmer had them all killed.
Gaia, laments the farmer for killing all his 35 000 chickens, saying it was purely for economic reasons. “Killing the chickens wasn’t necessary. According to some toxicologists, the fipronil ingested by the chickens is naturally eliminated in a few weeks. The farmer just wanted to get rid of the chickens as quickly as possible so he could replace them with new ones, says Michel Vandenbosch director of Gaia.
According to Belgium’s Federal Agency for the Safety of the Food Chain (Afsca), 86 farms have been shut down since the beginning of the crisis.
However, the particular farmer from the Luxembourg region is the first one who actually killed all his chickens. Neither Afsca or Gaia have detected any other cases or anything similar.
“The complaint we file will hopefully deter any other farms from doing the same”, continues Michel Vandenbosch. Unless any new order is issued, he refers to the animal welfare act in the unlawfulness of any action which would result in the unnecessary killing of an animal or which causes the animal unnecessary pain, mutilations or sufferings.
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The Brussels Times
