DAGUPAN CITY– A farming village in Pangasinan’s Pozorrubio town discovered 40,000 dead chickens which were dumped on Sunday at a private lot there, police said.
Residents of Barangay (village) Nagtangalan, which is about 4 kilometers west of the town center, were drawn to the area by the strong stench and quickly restrained the truck and its drivers which shipped the dead fowl to their community, said Chief Inspector Ryan Manongdo, Pozorrubio police chief.
“The driver told us the dead chickens came from a poultry farm in Barangay Unzad in Villasis [town]. He was contracted to dump them at
the poultry owner’s property here,” Manongdo said.
The truck arrived at 8 a.m. and the truck helpers unloaded sacks containing the dead chickens, he said.
“There was no attempt to bury them. They just told us that a backhoe was coming. But it did not come,” said Manongdo.
The chickens perished when the poultry farm’s ventilation system stopped working on Thursday, he said.
“What puzzles me is why they had to travel about 30 kilometers just to dump these dead chickens? Is there not a place in Villasis where they could bury them?” said Manongdo.
He said the dead chickens present a health risk to the community.
Pozorrubio Mayor Art Chan directed the truck owner to return the dead animals to Villasis, Manongdo said.
“We are also filing a case against the people responsible for this for violating the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act,” he said. JE