Mutilated Horses Keep Showing Up in the French Countryside

In recent months, there have been multiple discoveries of mutilated horses, mares, ponies and donkeys in rural France. Animals have been found stabbed through the heart, beaten with bricks or with their throats slashed. Some have had body parts – including eyes, nose and genitals – removed.

But one detail ties together the string of ten killings: nearly every time, the animal’s right ear has been carefully cut and removed.

On Friday the 11th of August, another animal joined the list of victims. In Sainte-Colombe-sur-Gand, near Saint-Étienne in central France, a stable owner found his horse dead, but couldn’t see any signs of abuse. He moved the horse to the edge of his field, to make things easier for the person coming to retrieve the body. On Monday morning, he noticed the horse’s body had been mutilated – its eye removed, its face slashed and its right ear missing.

As with previous cases, an investigation was launched, the official crime listed as “theft and concealment of animal organs”. The cases are all being dealt with by local services and overseen by the Central Office for the Fight against Environmental and Public Health Attacks (OCLAESP), a branch of the French police. “Logically, this new case should be added to the ten others we’re working on,” confirmed a police spokesperson. But there was a stark difference here: the mutilation was done post-mortem.

It’s not just only police who are puzzled by this detail. “This latest case bothers me: it’s as if it was done in two stages,” said Claire Juillet, head of the agricultural union Coordination Rurale. “It’s the first time that’s happened, or at least the first time we’ve realised it.”

Juillet is in charge of the union’s equine department. She’s been mapping the killings and has reason to believe they didn’t start this summer, having found a case from 2013 in which a horse had its right ear removed. From 2013 onwards, she’s found evidence of at least 30 additional cases.

As for the apparent uptick in killings this year, Juillet is wary of jumping to conclusions. “It seems as if it’s happening everywhere, but is it really increasing?” she said, pointing out that no police report was filed for various killings, making it hard to compare the numbers year on year. Juillet also believes media coverage may have spawned copycat killers.

“I’m not conducting an investigation. I’m leaving that to the police. But they do keep me posted about certain things,” she said. “We need to be very careful with how we approach what’s happening.”

Although certain wackier theories – a “horse-killer gang”, satanic rituals, witchcraft – have begun to emerge through word-of-mouth and even in local and national media, the events are being taken seriously by authorities. The regional information service, Service Central du Renseignement Territorial (SCRT), made a statement about the investigation, emphasising the “perfect” removal of the ears. They described a “clear desire to attack equines in general, and to keep an ear as a trophy”.

For now, say authorities, it’s difficult to draw any meaningful connections between incidents. “This has been happening to animals from very different backgrounds, and all over France,” said the police spokesperson.

In February, Demon du Médoc, a horse in western France, became a victim. A few days prior, it was a horse at an agricultural high school on the opposite side of the country, in Moselle. More recently, a young filly in Saône et Loire, in central-eastern France, was found dead with neck lacerations and mutilated genitals.

Whatever is happening, it may not be limited to France, with suspicious cases popping up in the neighbouring countries of Belgium and Germany. Their respective police departments have been contacted by the OCLAESP in order to join forces and share any leads.

“What’s weird is that, in many cases, these attacks have happened at similar times, but physically very far apart,” said Juillet. “Which makes you think it’s probably not just one single group behind this.” She’s also noticed that no draught horses – much larger animals – have been targeted. “Does it mean the size of the animal has scared off attackers?” she wondered.

While Juillet doesn’t want to rush to conclusions, she’s certain of a few things. One is that the attackers know a lot about horses. In several cases, the animals have been overpowered with the aid of a nose twitch, a restraint device used on the horse’s upper lip that produces a kind of local anaesthetic. “To use a nose twitch, you firstly have to know it exists, and to use one correctly you have to have a fairly advanced knowledge of horses. Most riders have never used one,” she said.

She also believes the killers are working in at least groups of two: “The average man weighs 80 kilograms, while a horse weighs 500. If you’re able to immobilise a horse with a lasso – as they’ve apparently done in several cases – it would be awfully tricky to cut off an ear so cleanly with your free hand.”

In a few cases, the horses have been shot with a firearm. “That’s why we’re advising people not to intervene if they see suspicious activity,” said Juillet. Although concerned by the increasing atrocity of the attacks, she remains hopeful the investigations will unlock something concrete soon.

“The attackers will get caught. Everyone is on the lookout.”