If the summer of 2021 is once again placed under the sign of Covid-19, another epidemic is raging in France: that of animal abandonment.
The phenomenon is however well known of the shelters of the SPA which take in each summer thousands of pets, abandoned by their masters at the time of the departures on vacation.
Read also: France, a poor European student of animal abandonment
But this year is the year of a sad record. “
Since May 1, nearly 11,000 abandoned animals have been collected,
” the SPA announced on July 23. “
This is 9% more than in 2019 over the same period,
” says the association, whose 62 refuges in France are now saturated.
The trend is even more visible in catteries, which welcomed 25% more residents in June compared to 2019. “
We don't know how to get by with all these kittens,
” confirms Christelle Varlet, director of the refuge of Compiègne, in the Oise. “
This weekend, we are organizing a 'special adoptions' event in front of the shelter. There will be games and a raffle to attract families and encourage them to adopt,
”explains the manager.
According to a study by the Federation of Food Manufacturers for Dogs, Cats and Other Pets (Facco) published at the end of May, French homes now have 15.1 million cats, 900,000 more than before the pandemic.
Faced with this proliferation, 101 veterinarians launched a call for sterilization in early July in order to fight against the increase in dropouts.
Confinements and impulsive adoptions
How to explain this explosion of exceptional abandonment? For the SPA, "
the health crisis has amplified the phenomenon
" because it has multiplied the "
easy and disempowering purchases made on the Internet
(as on the Le Bon Coin site)
and in pet stores
" during the year 2020. Adoptions impulsive which domestic animals have paid the price, the pandemic having led to many separations and a perpetuation of partial or total unemployment (and therefore of precariousness).
Concerning dogs more specifically, the various confinements and curfew "
may have developed certain disorders such as fear or aggression due to excessive confinement and a lack of external contact
", underlines the SPA. These behaviors would then explain the abandonment of some of the dogs collected. "
We appeal to the responsibility of animal owners
", pleads Jacques-Charles Fombonne, volunteer president of the SPA. “
Abandonment is not an option, it is a crime,
” he recalls.
The government presented on Wednesday July 21 an action plan costing 20 million euros to help the 800 French shelters to expand their reception facilities.
The Minister of Agriculture Julien Denormandie, in particular specified that a mandatory charter, providing information on care, vaccines and identification of the animal, will be submitted to adopters.
The penalties for an abandonment will be reduced from two to three years in prison and a vast awareness campaign will be set up on the motorway areas where, each year, half of the abandonments take place.
100,000 abandoned animals each year
However, the concern of the SPA is above all to fight against the scourge of the "animal-object".
For this, the association published a petition in October 2020, which collected more than 130,000 signatures out of a target of 100,000.
Jacques-Charles Fombonne therefore awaits validation by the Senate of the ban on the sale of animals in pet stores and on the Internet.
A bill that would stem the phenomenon of impulsive adoptions and prevent the abandonment of 100,000 animals each year in France.
Read also: France, a poor European student of animal abandonment
But for the ESPOAr collective, founded at the end of June by the Economic and Social Observatory for Animal Protection, "
the number of abandonments is still too underestimated
" because "
associations without refuge save tens of thousands of animals every year. thanks to their network of host families.
"S
ome of these associations can even collect twice as many animals as shelters
", specifies the collective.
ESPOAr fears that article 3bis of the draft law to fight against animal abuse will be voted as it is by the Senate at the start of the school year, because it denies the possibility for these associations without refuge to have recourse to host families. However, these associations without refuge are in the majority in France, with 3,200 structures throughout the territory, against 775 shelters.
