Three dead fallow deer and one that might not make it either. This is how Jasper Poot found the animal meadow in Stadskanaal on Saturday morning. The reason for death appears to be poisoning.
The caretakers found two dead in the pasture and one dead in the stable on Friday. They called me. “I said, ‘that’s weird’.” There was a fourth and he walked like he was drunk. He is now at Poot’s home on the farm. “The question is whether he will make it, he is not yet dead.”
Poot is the owner of Gradient Natuurbeheer in Kantens, a company for ecological maintenance for areas. “I’m actually sure: they have been poisoned.”
He explains himself further. “You can still think of bluetongue, but then three don’t die in one night. Often when they are very ill, the fallow deer lie down: pus from the eyes or nose, diarrhea. But they have had no such symptoms. When they had dinner on Friday it was completely fine.”
Cadaver removal service
Poot suspects that the four fallow deer have eaten something wrong. “They are four does and their calves – who are old enough to be independent – they have nothing. That can be explained: those does often come to the fence for a sandwich or lettuce leaf. Goats and sheep that walk there also do that, but those deer are much more pushy and then take the food.”
“I look like a carcass clean-up service,” grumbles Poot, who has just driven from Vinkhuizen to pick up two dead sheep that have succumbed to bluetongue. Poot has all kinds of animals, which he uses for grazing on location. “Of my two hundred sheep, ten have already succumbed to bluetongue, and two cattle this week.”
Still investigating?
Back to the fallow deer: does Poot still want to have the animals examined? He still has doubts himself. “I now have the carcasses at home. But what good does it do me to know if they are really poisoned? Then I can report it to the police, but those good people can’t do much with that either. On the other hand, I would like to know. I’m in doubt.”
And actually Poot himself is already sure that it is poisoning. “People throw the craziest things into that animal meadow. I sometimes still come across bones from the soup or whole containers of noodles. But if someone had done this deliberately, I would find that extremely resentful. I can’t believe that people are capable of such crazy things.”