The owner of a petting zoo at Willebroek (Antwerp Province) arrived to find a bloodbath when he opened up on Monday morning. The De Specht (The Woodpecker) petting zoo had been visited by a marten during the night and 17 of its animals has been killed. These included several peacocks, chickens and turkeys. "I arrived and it was strewn with carcasses here" owner Freddy Saerens told VRT News.
It is not the first time that the petting zoo has received an unwelcome visitor. De Specht's owner Freddy Saerens says that this is the 18th time that he has arrived at work to find that some of his animals have been killed by predators since he opened the zoo. He is more or less certain that a marten is the culprit.
"When I arrived in the morning, I found 17 dead animals here. They were all decapitated, so I suspect it was a marten. Foxes don't usually decapitate their prey. Usually foxes also confine their killing to 1 pen. This time the carnage was more widespread."
"We used to have an alarm system to warn us about the presence of foxes and martens, but in the past two years, we hadn't seen any. I thought they were gone, so I had removed the alarm system. I have now ordered a new one."