Outrageous animal rights violation or just immense stupidity
This is a disturbing and heart wrenching story of stupidity and narrow mindness people can sometimes demonstrate towards animals.
A Briton, Steven Drew, who has resettled and acquired a largish country estate in a small village in southern Poland made national news in mid-March. The Polish TV channel TVP2 showed a feature about the tragic fate of a herd of horses kept by the man. The animals spent the whole winter which has been especially harsh under open sky. In January there were still 26 horses alive but when TV reporters they saw harrowing scenes - 11 of them dead of cold and starvation and the rest in really sorry state, close to death. You can see fencing made of tree branches with no bark on them - it was eaten by the horses. The remaining alive horses were taken away and after proper veterinary care were placed with nearby farmers. The chances for their full recovery are quite promising.
The English farmer was not pleased with this intervention and maintained that he had not done anything wrong. He believes in natural horsekeeping but seems not to take into account that during winters in Poland snow is sometimes waist-deep and temperature can fall even below -30 degrees Celsius (-22 F). The horses hardly had a chance to survive without proper food and shelter.
See video feed TVP2
See video feed Polsat (Warning! these scenes are appalling)
