The SPCA requires measures to protect farm animals from fire

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QMI agency

Sunday, 25 February, 2018 20:54

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Sunday, 25 February, 2018 20:54

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The many fires in agricultural areas involving a large number of cattle raised the anger of the Society for the prevention of cruelty to animals (SPCA), which calls for better measures to protect these animals.

Earlier this week, a hundred beasts were killed in a major inferno that razed a building in Sainte-Angèle-de-Mérici, Bas-Saint-Laurent. Last November 1, a violent fire completely destroyed a barn in the municipality of Saint-Hilarion, Charlevoix, killing more than 1,100 pigs.

“It is a real scourge,” said Sophie Gaillard, a lawyer in defense of animals, SPCA Montreal.

Even if there are no official statistics on this subject, Sophie Gaillard believes that if we trust only to what was reported in the media since the January 1, 2015, some 300 000 animals perished in the flames in Quebec.

According to the lawyer, this situation can be explained first of all by a problem of prevention.

“What is currently unacceptable is that there is no standard quebec obliging producers with a building housing animals to have a basic safety system. Smoke detectors and sprinklers are not mandatory”, she says.

The lawyer believes that everything should just become the mandatory because “obviously the producers do not themselves”.

According to Sophie Gaillard, the government should therefore put in place a financing program to enable farmers to bring their buildings to these basic systems.

“It takes just regulations like there are for other types of buildings : residential and industrial,” she says.

Reservations

Daniel Lefebvre, an expert in dairy production at Valacta, shows, however, skeptical of this type of measures.

“As in the case of residences for the elderly, there is an element for preserving lives and there is an economic aspect”, says he.

“It is not against the fact that the government invest in systems of this type. It must, however, question their actual usefulness. Is it going to really delay the fire enough so as to bring out the animals?”.

According to Daniel Lefebvre, “a smoke detector will not ensure that the cows are going to come out of their own building”.