Euronews: How to Kill Thousands of Animals in a Few Days, Bulgaria's Battle with Livestock Plague

After Ovine rinderpest was discovered in Voden, the Bulgarian authorities had to work out how to kill thousands of animals in a matter of days.

Of course plans and precedents exist for such a programme but on a logistical and human level, there are many challenges to overcome.

The first positive test results of this disease also known as 'sheep and goat plague' were found in two sheep belonging to Yordan Trifonov, a 50-year-old ex-police officer.

After these positive results, Minister of Agriculture, Food and Forestry Rumen Porozhanov said that Bulgaria would take appropriate measures in regards to the outbreaks and containment zones, which included the humanitarian euthanasia of all small-scale animals from the affected ones and the ones that were in contact with. The EU encouraged Bulgaria to take these necessary containment and eradication measures, including drastic movement restrictions for sheep and goats and their products.

One week after the positive test results were returned from the French lab CIRAD, some 30 veterinarians along with local assistants showed up to Yordan's property to perform the mass culling on his 300 sheep.

Just before the animals were killed, a protocol document to ensure the humane killing of the livestock needed to be signed by both a veterinarian and Yordan himself. This protocol described how the animals would be euthanized by injection and then buried after, not incinerated. Authorities said the animals were buried because this region of Bulgaria is not suitable for burning animals, and transporting them to a region for incineration would only present a deeper threat.

All of Yordan's 300 sheep were killed one-by-one, with multiple injections into the animal's main carotid artery. An injection...