Have the green tides claimed new victims?
This is the question asked by the owners of three dogs, in Côtes-d'Armor, the department most affected by this scourge, which pollutes its coast with clusters as putrid as they are worrying.
The three animals, belonging to three masters who did not know each other, walked the same day on the same beach at Saint-Efflam, Sunday, September 12.
All three dogs, two of whom died, reported the same characteristic symptoms of intoxication
(sudden shortness of breath, exhaustion, tremors, even convulsions, and the latter's bluish tongue)
. "The first, Greg, a labrador and Beauceron cross, 10 years old, died a few hours after his walk, the second, Moggly, a young 5-year-old border collie in perfect health, died two days later, the third, a Breton spaniel. , managed to get away with it, ”recalls Yves-Marie Le Lay, from the Safeguarding Trégo Goëlo Penthièvre association, which funded part of the medical expertise.
The conclusions of the veterinary expert Vincent Petit, which have just fallen, do not allow to incriminate in a certain way the green algae.
“The significant presence of H2S (hydrogen sulphide) on the beach, often slightly buried in the sand, has been established,” explains Yves-Marie Le Lay.
But only one autopsy could be performed, on Moggly, and he had no (or no more?) H2S in his lungs.
Except that he could very well have had time, in his death throes for two days, to breathe out this potentially fatal gas.
"
Read also Côtes-d'Armor: the fight of a retiree against green algae
The association, as it has been doing since the death of jogger Jean-René Auffray, in Hillion, in 2016, asks the regional prefect to establish a protocol requiring, at a minimum, a blood sample "as soon as you feel unwell or death of a human being or an animal in unclear circumstances in areas at risk of hydrogen sulphide poisoning ”.
