Fed up with reckless pet owners not cleaning up the glorious shit left by their animal buddies on roads and alleys, a French town is taking a rather extreme measure to punish these irresponsible human overloads.
Robert Ménard, mayor of the French city Beziers, is planning a two-year experiment that will allow DNA fingerprinting using pet poop to trace the naughty owners and slap them with a fine.
The plan starts with a “pet passport.” All human pet pals will have to take their pet to a veterinary outlet and get their dog’s DNA profiled using a saliva sample. This DNA profile is subsequently saved in a large database, alongside the details of the pet owner.
![AI-generated render created using Dall-E engine.](https://athenil.com/content/images/2023/07/IMG_0255.jpg)
This is the genetic passport, and pet owners need to carry it every time they are out and about flaunting their four-legged friend. Not carrying a genetic passport in public would carry a fine worth $43. But shit really goes down when the real shit is out.
Next time a dog drops a glorious doodie on the footwalk — or any other public place where humans walk — and the pet owner doesn’t clean up after it, a vengeful sage of state-led retribution kicks into action.
The designated enforcement officials are authorized to collect DNA samples from the abandoned furry faeces, match them against the pet DNA database, and trace the owner. Once found, the owner will be slapped with a fine worth $137.
“We did a count and we pick up more than 1,000 messes a month, sometimes a lot more, just in the town centre. It just cannot go on,” says the town’s fed-up mayor (via The Guardian). I feel ya, Mr. Mayor, I truly do!