Elliot is saved.
He will be able to continue to make his song heard in the Gassicourt district, in Mantes-la-Jolie (Yvelines), where he has lived for two years.
The Versailles police court has just released its owners, pursued by neighbors who complained about his singing which they considered “untimely”.
"We are surrounded by seven neighbors but only one person complains about Elliot," says its owner, Jean-Claude.
He does not abuse, we do not hear him at night because he sleeps in an isolated henhouse, but she can no longer stand his song.
She came to me to tell me, sometimes with excessive words, but I don't blame her because she is not well. ”
"At one point, I had a police car parked all day in front of my house!"
From the garden where he cheers up with his chickens, Elliot, haughty bearing and hairy legs, nevertheless seems silent.
The placid animal did not sing once during the interview hour.
And yet… The municipal police of Mantes-la-Jolie know it by heart: protocol obliges, it intervened dozens of times at the home of its owner following calls from the complainant.
“In three months, the police came to the house 96 times.
At one point, I had a police car parked all day in front of my house!
They came four times a day, ”recalls Jean-Claude.
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The case, which looks like so many others elsewhere in France, did not only mobilize the police.
The town hall of Mantes-la-Jolie followed the file closely, dispatching its environmental brigade, in order to try to close this subject which it took seriously.
Nuisances measured with a sound level meter
"The city's hygiene service offered an expensive service, supported by the community, while it is sometimes refused to victims of nighttime noise in urban areas: the intervention of the specialist with his sound level meter, to measure the intensity of the noise of the rooster ”, angered the public prosecutor (OMP), astonished at such a mobilization of public resources.
The magistrate finally asked for the release of the owners, relieved to be able to keep their animal.
"Anyway, I couldn't have killed it or got rid of it," breathes Jean-Claude.
I would have paid the 150 euros fine but I would not have touched Elliot. "
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Such a decision had indeed been taken for a similar case in 2008. After a resident of Drocourt had complained about her neighbor's rooster, the judge of the police court of Mantes-la-Jolie had asked the owner of the animal to silence its animal within a month.
Delay after which the animal had to be killed if the songs did not cease.
The general indignation and the media noise around this case had prompted the magistrate to reconsider his decision.
SURGERY.
Save the chickens in Meulan
A first sale of chickens was organized in Gazeran at the end of January.
LP / Ju.M.
New to the henhouse or connoisseur, this call is for you.
The environmental association "La Nature au cœur" offers the inhabitants of Meulan and its region to buy cull laying hens from organic breeding and in the open air.
An action for a good cause since these hens, aged eighteen months, are no longer laying enough for trade and are therefore condemned to be slaughtered.
For 7 euros, you can save them, even adopt them knowing that the animal will give eggs for another six years on average.
Pre-orders by email are essential and prepayment required.
A first sale organized at the end of January, further south in Gazeran, by “Poule pour tous”, partner of the operation, had already enabled 450 breeding animals to give themselves a second life.
These poultry had been held for eighteen months in Brittany in difficult living conditions linked to the confinement imposed on them by the avian flu epidemic.
Information on lanatureaucoeur@gmail.com
