The tragic plight of a flock of sheep has united Bulgarians in a common cause to save them

For more than a week now, the story of a family of breeders raising local breeds of sheep has captured the attention of not only the Bulgarian public, but also of compatriots abroad. Instead of following the drama in Parliament and the struggle for political supremacy, people were more concerned about the fate of Bai Georgi from Velingrad and his flock, and did everything in their power to save his sheep from the white collars of the Bulgarian Food Safety Agency (BFSA), which had ordered the culling of more than 1,700 animals on suspicion of testing positive for African plague.

Protest in Velingrad in support of farmers with flocks which tested positive for sheep and goat plague

For more than 50 years, the man from Velingrad has been selecting an ancient breed of Karakachan and Copper Red sheep, almost extinct in Bulgaria. He breeds them with the help of his sons Dimitar and Stefan Iliev and their wives. The order to cull their livestock because of an alleged outbreak of small ruminant plague came out of the blue.

But the case has a precedent dating back four years, when more than 4,000 animals were killed in the Strandzha Mountains because they tested positive for African small ruminant plague. The results were not confirmed by an independent laboratory. Only one herd survived after volunteers, conservation organisations and experienced lawyers stepped in to defend the breeders. With their help, the owners sued the BFSA. It was established that no strain of the disease had been isolated. In 2020, the Supreme Administrative Court ruled that there had been no cases of sheep and goat plague at all.

Euthanasia of Strandja herds postponed

It is still not clear which samples were used to inform the European Commission on 25 November of 25 isolated positive samples and 4 deaths in the three flocks of Bai (Uncle) Georgi.

There were no dead animals at all on the Rhodope farms, the owners claim, and this can be seen from the ear tags. Fortunately, the slaughter of the Velingrad herds was prevented after citizens and breeders formed a human chain around the farm and environmental organisations and lawyers appealed to all institutions about the illegal actions of the BFSA. Disease detection is a complex process that follows strict protocols - an individual kit for each sample, which must be tested in an accredited laboratory. But there is no such laboratory in the country, say the lawyers defending the farmers.

The national laboratory of the Bulgarian Food Safety Agency is accredited to test for African plague, but only in horses and pigs.

On this occasion, Judge Rumyana Chenalova published on her Facebook page documents proving that there is no method to test for plague in small ruminants and that the laboratory has no legal basis to take and test samples for plague in sheep and goats on the farm.

A week after the BFSA was alerted, the EC responded that the animals had to be killed immediately! In a statement, the Directorate-General for Crisis Preparedness in Food, Animals and Plants of the Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety said that further delays by the Bulgarian authorities endanger the health of sheep and goats not only in Bulgaria but throughout the EU.

The BFSA management assured that the agency will continue to strictly follow all requirements of European and national legislation in the disease investigation process and has already sent the samples from the flocks with confirmed small ruminant plague to the reference laboratory in Monpellier, France.

However, the Bulgarian authorities are silent on the fact that although the European regulation states that the competent authority can order a preventive cull, there may be exceptions to the requirement to kill the animals, and one such exception is in the case of officially registered rare breeds - as is the case with the sheep owned by the Iliev family.

This important but inconvenient detail, given the generous European compensation, has been pointed out by the conservation NGO "Na Ti s Prirodata" ("At Peace with Nature"), which has been challenging BFSA decisions to cull healthy animals for years, even successfully taking them to court on several occasions. The same organisation has repeatedly reported irregularities within the Agency to the European institutions. Although BFSA frequently changes its top administrators, its modus operandi remains largely unchanged.

And while tests show that Georgi's sheep should be very sick by now, the animals show no visual signs of developing the symptoms of the deadly disease. Half a month, if not more, has passed since they were tested for the disease and reported positive. The incubation period is 3 to 7 days and if there really was an outbreak, at least half the flock would have died by now. Not only are the sheep not dying, but several lambs are being born every day. This can be seen in the footage of the daily videos from the farm, as well as in the reports on bTV, where their condition is clearly evident.

On 5 December, it was decided that the animals would not be culled but would remain in quarantine and that there would be temporary restrictions on the movement of small ruminants in the Pazardzhik region where the herds are located. Experts predict that the Bulgarian Food Safety Agency (BFSA) is likely to face another court ruling against it. It will be interesting to see how the Commission reacts when it finds out that the data it has received is incorrect.

Photos: BTA, BGNES, Nevena Petrova - BNR Pazardzhik

English publication: E. Radkova

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The tragic plight of a flock of sheep has united Bulgarians in a common cause to save them

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